A former Nigerian lawmaker, Senator Shehu Sani, has said that rather than fulfill its promise of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty, President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) government officially threw 133 million Nigerians into deeper poverty.
The former lawmaker who represented the Kaduna Central Senatorial District at the 8th Assembly on the platform of the APC said this on Friday on his Twitter page while lamenting the continued economic downturn and rising level of poverty in Nigeria under President Buhari.
Senator Sani said, “They promised to lift one hundred million people out of poverty; now they have officially thrown one hundred and thirty three million people into deeper poverty.”
Recall that although every president has the highest of eight years to stay in office in Nigeria, President Buhari had promised to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years, and in July 2021, he reiterated the commitment of his government to fulfill the promise.
President Buhari in June 2021 set up a committee known as National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy (NPRGS), intended to carry out mandates that would lead to lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty as promised.
Reiterating his commitment to fulfilling his promise, Buhari’s Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu in a statement in July 2021 said, “I wish to restate my commitment that getting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty is realisable.
“The country is robustly blessed with good weather conditions, good soil, human and material capacity, and resilience to make a difference by all the hardworking youths.
“We can do it, and we will do it. No excuse will be good enough to remain a mono-economy with all the challenges in oil production and fluctuating global prices when we have vast opportunities in crop and livestock production.”
But the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday announced that Nigeria currently had 133million people representing 62.9 percent of Nigeria’s population living in multidimensional poverty.
This, according to the NBS report, means that 133 million Nigerians experienced deprivations in more than one dimension, or in at least 26% of weighted deprivations, adding that while 4 out of 10 Nigerians experience monetary deprivation, more than 6 out of 10 are multidimensionally poor.
“The average deprivation score among poor people, which shows the intensity of poverty, is 40.9%. Over a fifth of poor people experience deprivations in at least half of the dimensions or weighted indicators. The poorest districts also have the highest intensity of poverty—each poor person is deprived in 51% of the weighted MPI indicators in Kebbi South and Bayelsa West,” NBS added.
It further stated that “7 out of 10 Nigerians living in the rural areas are multidimensionally poor compared to 4 out of 10 in urban areas,” adding that “Multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72.0% of people are poor, compared to 42.0% of people in urban areas. Approximately 70% of Nigeria’s population live in rural areas, yet these areas are home to 80% of poor people.
“The intensity of poverty in rural areas is also higher, at 41.9%, compared to 36.9% in urban areas.”
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