The recent report by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that about 133 million Nigerians live in poverty is generating serious controversy, with the Federal and State governors now trading words.
Recall that in the early month of November, NBS disclosed that 133 million Nigerians were multi-dimensionally poor, saying that the figure represents 63 percent of the country’s population.
The report blamed the country’s rising poverty on poor access to education, living standards, health, employment and security.
It further indicated that 65% of the country’s poor people (86 million) live in the North, whereas 35% (nearly 47 million) live in the South.
In the wake of the NBS report, SERAP blamed Nigeria’s rising poverty on corruption and mismanagement in the spending of trillions of naira on social safety nets and poverty alleviation programmes, including the reported disbursement of over $700 million from the repatriated Abacha looted funds to these programmes.
Some economic experts also blamed the country’s leaders at the federal, State and local governments for throwing millions of Nigerians into abject poverty.
However, following a series of criticisms and condemnations that trailed the report, the federal government last Wednesday came out to say that State governors were responsible for the rising rate of poverty across the country
