The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced that no fewer than 133 million Nigerians are ridden with poverty, with Sokoto State taking the lead of the pack.
The NBS, in its “Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index’’ released today, November 17, explained that the figure represents 63 per cent of the nation’s population.
“Poverty levels across states vary significantly, with the incidence of multidimensional poverty ranging from a low of 27 per cent in Ondo state to a high of 91 per cent in Sokoto state,” the Bureau said in the report.
The report said the poorest States are Sokoto, Bayelsa, Jigawa, Kebbi, Gombe and Yobe, “but we could not say for sure which of these is the poorest, because their confidence intervals overlap.”
According to the report, over half of the population who are poor cook with dung, wood or charcoal, rather than cleaner energy, adding that high deprivations are also apparent in sanitation, time to healthcare, food insecurity and housing.
The report said that multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72 per cent of people are poor, compared to 42 per cent of people in urban areas.
The Bureau said that approximately, 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population live in rural areas which are home to 80 per cent of poor people.
It said that the first poverty index survey published by the statistics bureau since 2010, said that 65 per cent of the poor (86 million people) live in the North, while 35 per cent (nearly 47 million) live in the South.
The NBS said that the incidence of monetary poverty is lower than the incidence of multidimensional poverty across most states.
“In Nigeria, 40.1 per cent of people were poor, based on the 2018/19 national monetary poverty line, and 63 per cent are multidimensionally poor according to the National MPI 2022.”
