Nigeria now has second-highest number of poor people globally, says Yemi Kale

Poor Nigerians

Yemi Kale, former statistician-general of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), says approximately 89 million people, or 40 percent of Nigeria’s population, live below the poverty line.

Kale, currently the group chief economist and managing director of research and trade intelligence at Afreximbank, spoke at The Platform Nigeria’s Independence Day event, themed ‘Rebuilding Our Nation’.

The economist said Nigeria is the country with the second-highest number of poor people globally after India.

“To grasp the magnitude of this number, we can consider that fewer than 20 of the world’s 195 recognised countries even have a population larger than just Nigeria’s estimated number of poor,” he said.

“And these dynamics are compounding. Together, these trends threaten the very promise of independence that every Nigerian should have the opportunity to thrive at home.

“So what went wrong? Well, there are many reasons, but a large part of it lies in policy missteps and costly delays in implementing needed reforms. Thecable