As many as 133m Nigerians live in multi-dimensional poverty according to new report

NIGERIA has a total of about 133m people living below the poverty line of who can be classified as being multi-dimensionally poor according to statistics just revealed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In its latest National Multi-dimensional Poverty Index Report, the NBS said that 63% of Nigerians are poor due to a lack of access to health and education and poor living standards, alongside unemployment and shocks. This report offers a multivariate form of poverty assessment, identifying deprivations across health, education, living standards, work and shocks.

According to the NBS statistician-general Semiu Adeniran, this is the first time they will conduct a standard multi-dimensional poverty survey in Nigeria. He added: “The survey was implemented in 2021 to 2022 and it is the largest survey with a sample size of over 56,610 people in 109 senatorial districts in the 36 states of Nigeria.”

Matthias Schmale, the United Nations resident and humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, who revealed the findings from the report, said 63% of Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. He added that this means that  they are being derived in more than one dimension of the four measured.

Mr Schmale said: “Multi-dimensional poverty is more pronounced in rural areas where 72% cent of people are poor compared to urban areas where we have 42 %. Gender disparity continues to affect the population with one in seven poor people living in a household in which a man has completed high school but the woman has not.”