LIFELESS PRESIDENT AND A LIFELESS ECONOMY: Most Of World’s Very Poor People Are Nigerians — Theresa May UK’s PM

British Prime Minister, Theresa May, said yesterday that Nigeria is the home of the highest number of poor people in the world. 

Speaking in Cape Town, South Africa, where she is currently on a state visit, the Prime Minister said Africa is home to a majority of the world’s fragile states, and a quarter of the world’s displaced people. 

According to her, Africa has the highest number of poor people in the world, and that 87 million Nigerians are living below the poverty line of $1 and 90 cents per day. 

May’s statement is also coming months after the Brookings Institution named Nigeria the poverty capital of the world, overtaking India, a country with a total population of about 1.3 billion people. “Much of Nigeria is thriving, with many individuals enjoying the fruits of a resurgent economy, yet 87 million Nigerians live below $1 and 90 cents a day, making it home to more very poor people than any other nation in the world,” Prime Minister May said. 

She said achieving inclusive growth is a challenge across the world, adding that Africa needs to create 50,000 new jobs per day to keep the employment rate at its current levels until 2035. 

The prime minister, who will be visiting Nigeria later this week, said she wanted the UK to become the biggest G-7 investor in Africa by 2022, building around shared prosperity and shared security, adding that a healthy African economy is a good news for the UK. ‘Our aid programme must work for us’ She said: “I am unashamed about the need to ensure that our aid programme works for the UK Today, I am committing that our development spending will not only combat extreme poverty but at the same time tackle global challenges and support our own national interest. 

“It is in the world’s interest to see that those jobs are created to tackle the causes and symptoms of extremism and instability, to deal with migration flows and to encourage clean growth.” The UK has one of the biggest overseas aid programmes in the world, expending $18 billion on aid overseas in 2017 alone. 

Seven Nigerians descend into extreme poverty every minute. At a press briefing on Nigeria Poverty Profile Report 2010, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS presented Nigeria’s harmonised living standard surveys for 1980, 1985, 1992, 1996, 2004 and 2010. According to the report, the percentages of the Nigerian population living in extreme poverty were as follows: 1980 (6.2 per cent), 1985 (12.1 per cent), 1992 (13.9 per cent), 1996 (29.3 per cent), 2004 (22 per cent) and 2010 (38.7 per cent). 

In 2015, the World Poverty Clock of the World Data Lab in Vienna, Austria stated that 42.4 percent of Nigerians were living in extreme poverty and in June 2018, the figure was 44.2 percent. Living in extreme poverty as defined by the World Bank is living under $1.90 (N680) per day. People living in extreme poverty are unable to meet their minimal needs for survival. In 2015, the UN set up the Sustainable Development Goals, and the first of them is to “eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030”.

However to achieve this globally,90 people need to leave poverty every minute to eradicate poverty totally by 2030; and to achieve this in Africa, 57 people have to leave every minute; and in Nigeria,12 people per minute. Currently, the reverse appears the case in Nigeria. Reason: On the average, seven people descend into poverty every minute.