The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) 2014 report has put the percentage of Nigerians living in poverty at 43.3 per cent.
According to the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) 2014 Nigeria Country Briefing, released on its website, 19.3 per cent of the population remained vulnerable to poverty while 25.3 per cent of Nigerians live in severe poverty.
The OPHI is an economic research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford.
Established in 2007, the centre is led by Sabina Alkire. OPHI aims to build and advance a more systematic methodological and economic framework for reducing multi-dimensional poverty, grounded in people’s experiences and values
The report added that 26.6 per cent of the population are destitute while inequality remained high at 0.287 among the MPI poor.
It said 68.0 per cent and 84.5 per cent of the Nigerian population lived below $1.25 per day and $2 per day respectively in 2010.
The report further stated that the rural areas had the largest number of poor people at 57.5 per cent while 16.1 per cent resided in urban areas.
Kebbi State was adjudged as having the largest number of poor people accounting for 89.3 per cent, followed by Zamfara, which accounted for 88 per cent of the poverty numbers, as well as Sokoto and Yobe States, which accounted for 86 per cent and 85.1 per cent respectively.
However, Lagos State accounted for only 2.6 per cent of Nigerians living in poverty.
Meanwhile, former Minister of National Planning Commission (NPC), Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, while making reference to the new Oxford poverty index, noted that several poverty alleviation initiatives of government had failed partly because they were mere palliative measures which do not equip the supposed beneficiaries with relevant training and tools to get them out of poverty.
Delivering a keynote address in Abuja at the 25th anniversary lecture/book presentation of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Usman said financial exclusion represented a major cause of poverty in the country.
He noted that the way forward was for policy-makers to empathise and have a feel of what poverty really is to enable them design effective poverty alleviation programmes.
Speaking on ‘Financial Inclusion and Poverty Alleviation in Nigeria’, he said the country’s economic growth had failed to translate into improvement in living standards because of the uneven distribution of wealth as the rich get richer while the poor becomes poorer.
He stressed the need for income redistribution to alter the existing imbalance. He, however, commended NDIC for enhancing financial inclusion through various literacy initiatives.
Meanwhile, volumes seven and eight of the Nigerian Banking Law Reports published by the NDIC were also launched yesterday by the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore.
He described the establishment of the corporation as one of the wisest decisions of government and commended the deposit insurance regulator for sustaining the publication, which according to him, would go a long way to aid the development of the country.
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