Opinion: On Rising Unemployment and Poverty in Nigeria – By DANIEL IGHAKPE
Unemployment and poverty are two of the major issues currently affecting Nigeria’s economy and its society. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the population of the unemployed in Nigeria during the last quarter of 2020 (Q4 2020) stood at 33.3 percent – an increase of 6.2 percent points compared with the 27.1 percent of quarter two 2020 (Q2 2020). This places Nigeria in the number three position among countries with the highest number of unemployed people in the world! Also, according to data from the World Poverty Clock (a Web tool produced by World Data Lab), the number of people living in extreme poverty in Nigeria rose from 86.9 million in 2018, to 93.7 million in 2019, thus Nigeria stands as the nation with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty across the world!