The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS says 82.9 million Nigerians (40.1 percent) of the population are poor. The bureau disclosed this in its 2019 Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria study released on Monday.
The report indicates that on average, 4 out of 10 individuals in Nigeria has real per capital expenditures below 137,430 Naira per year.
This translates to over 82.9 million Nigerians who are considered poor by national standards.
The Nigerian Living Standards Survey (NLSS) is the official survey that is the basis for measuring poverty and living standards.
The study which was conducted by NBS between September of 2018 and October of 2019, is the latest round of the NLSS after a decade.
The survey was representative at the state level with a sample size of 22,110 households, focusing on increasing the understanding of living conditions of the Nigerian population.
It collected data on household and individual demographics (age, gender, marital status, among others), access to education, health and basic services, employment, assets, and income.
The survey is used to measure prevalence of poverty and to estimate a wide range of socio-economic indicators including benchmarking of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The scope according to the NBS, include all the 36 states in the country and FCT except Borno due to insurgency in the area.
Given that NLSS 2018-19 is not technically comparable to either the NLSS 2003-04 and to 2009-10, the bureau said it is not possible to compare poverty levels between 2003-04, 2009-10 and 2018-19.
In order to compare poverty rates across time, it stated that the underlying data should be collected in similar method, adding that the way the data is collected has great effect on the values reported by households.
According to the study, 2019 study was accordingly treated as a base study and any comparisons with previous poverty studies should be treated with caution.
Further look into the survey showed that with Nigeria’s 40.09 percent poverty rate, the country still have 12.85 percent poverty gap index and 5.63 percent poverty squared gap index.
On the urban and rural scale, the country recorded 18.04 percent poverty rate in the urban areas, 4.47 percent gap index and 1.68 percent gap square index, in the rural areas the study shows 52.10 percent poverty rate, 17.42 percent gap index and 7.78 percent gap square index.
On the state by state basis, Sokoto and Taraba led the log with 87.73 percent and 87.72 percent poverty rate respectively, while Lagos and Delta state led the chat on the less poverty ravaged states with 6.50 percent and 6.02 percent.
