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’90% Nigerians live on less than $2 per day’ By Oziegbe Okoeki
Sanusi Lamido
Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has said 90 per cent of Nigeria live on less than $2 per day.
Sanusi, who was the Guest speaker at the 5th Annual Hijrah lecture of the Lagos State’s House of Assembly, on the theme ‘Societal Reformation: The role of Muslims’, said despite being a major oil producing nation, poverty, lack and deprivation reign supreme.
“We are an oil producing country, how come 90 per cent of our people are living on less than two dollars a day, how come 70 per cent of our people are living on less than one dollar a day, how come we have so many women dying in child birth, how come we have so many children that are out of school, how come life expectancy is down to 55 or 54. What has happened to us? We need to ask what have we done”?, Sanusi said.
He admonished Muslims to speak up about immorality and corruption in the society, urging that they speak the truth always even if they will not be loved for doing so.
He condemned the attitude of the average Nigerian of wanting to take more than his fair share in everything saying is the very genesis of corruption which practically every Nigerian is guilty of.
Sanusi also called on the leaders especially those in government to remember that Allah will ask all about that which He has placed in their care. He said, “each of you is a shepherd, each of you have been given something to take care of and each of you will be asked about that you have been given responsibility for. Every man is a shepherd and will be asked about the people in his house”. Adding that responsibility is not only about leaders but even about every position we find ourselves in the society.
He further admonished Muslims to read, understand and live the Quaran as injunctions there is meant to guide their daily actions in every sphere of life.
“We all need to ask ourselves what examples we lead, what values we base our lives on, what principle we preach and we need to always remember that this has been the one message of Allah all through time”, Sanusi said.
While welcoming the guest earlier, Chief Host of the event, Speaker of the Lagos Assembly said, the nation is going through a very difficult period, “a period of instability which we have not had for a very long time”, and prayed for a period of peace and progress.
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’90% Nigerians live on less than $2 per day’ By Oziegbe Okoeki
This global problem is well and alive in Nigeria. The irony here though, is the idea of the head of a central bank putting a spotlight on it.
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Agriculture and manufacturing, if Nigeria gets those right in over the decade then they can greatly bring down that 61%.
Still I'm sort of shocked. I looked it up online and got some conflicting results:
Nigeria’s poverty level rises, hits 71.5% •Sokoto, Niger top list of poorest states http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/fron...poorest-states Quote: Meanwhile, Sokoto and Niger states topped the list of poorest states in Nigeria as poverty rate hit 71.5 per cent.
Dr Kale stated that the North-West and North-East geopolitical zones recorded the highest poverty rate in Nigeria with 77.7 per cent and 76.3 per cent respectively, while Sokoto and Niger topped the list of the poorest states.
He said that poverty rate in Nigeria might have risen to 71.5 per cent, 61.9 per cent, and 62.8 per cent using the relative, absolute and dollar-per-day measures respectively. Nigerians living in poverty rise to nearly 61% http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17015873
Quote: The National Bureau of Statistics said 60.9% of Nigerians in 2010 were living in "absolute poverty" - this figure had risen from 54.7% in 2004. and this is from 2009: Nigeria: MDGs - Poverty Rate Rises to 76 Percent - UN http://allafrica.com/stories/200902270161.html Quote: The UN Habitat, an arm of the United Nations responsible for promotion of quality housing and urban planning around the world yesterday said from its analysis the poverty rate in the country has shut up from 46 per cent in 1996 to 76 per cent at present. I don't know what to believe. Too much confliction. Hopefully that gdp rebasing can shed some light on Nigeria's real poverty rate. __________________ [QUOTE=Tbite;88524896]90% of food is not imported in Nigeria. Stop your Moroccan agenda.
And yes we are well ahead of the rise in poverty.
It is simply a matter of economic restructuring and the need for direct investment in some areas.
Some parts of the country are unable or they are having the incapacity to deal with the pressures of modernization etc etc. This is particularly in areas such as the North East.
Now if you go to the South West for example, the poverty rates is better than most African countries. It is simply a matter of restructuring the economy. I believe some measures are being taken. One of the key things happening in the country is decreased affordability. So things are essentially becoming more expensive, that is really the crux of the matter. Lack of participation in the economy; as the services sector and the Oil/Gas sector have now constituted larger shares over the past 10 years, lack of competition and growing prices is what is resulting in a more polarized economy.
Now like I said, measures are being taken. It is not something that you will see the result for instantaneously, Nigeria is the largest country in Africa, so some of the challenges that we face are monumental and cannot be compared to those of mini tourism resorts. Like I said the economy has been changed so quickly in 10 years time that we have not had a time to abate the inequalities. When Obasanjo came to power in 1999, we had the beginning or the resurgence of private enterprise; we had a lot of growth which is very tangible, but we did not regulate this, we did not have competition and we did not create enough jobs via diversification.
We are going to be doing this. Poverty will actually increase even more this year in 2012, but going into 2015 and onwards, I believe that poverty will begin to drop. We are putting a lot of pressures in the various industries, such as the Oil/Gas sector, the Telecoms sector etc to ensure that there is competition, there is service quality and there is local content; and of course like I mentioned earlier we will be ramping up other sectors of the economy such as Agriculture, mining, manufacturing and agriculture.
This is all about economic restructuring. Nigeria's economy changed so much in 10 years, that we haven't kept tabs on the changes. It is a short term affair, we are well aware of it.[/QUOTE]
___________ [QUOTE=Arinze;88524958]Poverty By Region (2009) North West = 71.2% North East = 72.2% North central = 67% South West = 43% South South = 36.1% South East = 26.7%[/QUOTE]
______________ [QUOTE=Tbite;88525163]I have seen that statistic before and I know it is recent but It is definitely not the most recent one. NBS has the most accurate and recent studies.
They are the only people I look too for such statistics. So when they say poverty is 61% for example in this instance, I didn't question it.
If the IMF for example had said poverty was 61% or 70% I would have thrown the claim out the window.
I believe all the claims from the NBS and the are working on determining the results from the rebasing at the end of Q1 so then we will have a better idea of how the restructuring of the economy will take shape. Electricity will also be privatized Q2, so a lot of the things will happen quite soon.
Poverty however will rise again this year, it will continue to rise, it doesn't mean anything really, the progress is actually significant, it just cannot take immediate effect. The Jonathan Presidency should continue doing what they are doing and more, they should not be shocked into reversing their reforms. I can tell you this though, the Nigerian president has a brilliant understanding of how poverty works in Nigeria. I guarantee you that before the end of his tenure, poverty will be driven down significantly[/QUOTE]
___________ [QUOTE=Tbite;88529889]Bring what out in the open? Do you think a Nigerian that is facing an increase in food prices and other affordability etc will not be aware of the increase in poverty? do you think the economists are not aware of the economic structure.
The Nigerian economy is growing robustly...we have a paradox, because we require more production, local content and diversification. We already know this and we are putting the machinery in place.
Nigeria is not competitive internally, that is the problem we are facing. Nigeria is a consumer based economy; that is the crux of the matter. But we have many things in place that will correct this.
Nigeria has become more polarized not worse, economic polarity can be corrected and it is being corrected.
Nigerians are actually becoming richer every year, you can see it with the consumer spending index. The issue is that the spread of wealth is defective, due to the economic structure like I mentioned. We just need participation in the economy which will be facilitated by economic diversification, curbing of imports and increases on exports of value added goods and general production. Competitiveness will also drive down prices and create affordability etc.[/QUOTE]
_________ There is alot of conflicting reports when it come to nigeria.
quote- Population growth rates are still too high,i think that is one of the major problems.It can't be ignore,Either slow it down or increase economic growth rates to 10% and up like china has done in the past.
No country could have both ways if you want to have less poverty.Of course there are other factors too for poverty in nigeria,population growth rates is the top major one i think or top two at least.
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