Nigeria is mostly single-handedly ruining the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end extreme poverty by 2030. How? Well, a new report by The World Poverty Clock shows that Nigeria has now overtaken India as the country with the most extreme poor people in the world.
In a week of horrible news, this is significantly bad. You see, India has a population of over one billion people, and Nigeria is a country of about 180 million people. But somehow, Nigeria now has more poor people than a country that is five times our population size.
According to the report, 86.9 million – about 50% of Nigeria’s estimated 180 million – Nigerians now live in extreme poverty. But, that problem will quite likely multiply, because, as we reported earlier in the year, Nigeria is still on course to become the world’s third largest country by 2050. And if history has taught us anything, it is that our problems are directly proportional to our number.
Worse, not one word has been heard from the government about this. Not surprising, we can just add that to the deathly long list of awful things that our leaders have no comment for. The fact that more Nigerian citizens are being plunged into extreme poverty is an indictment on successive Nigerian governments which have mismanaged the country through incompetence and corruption.
Of the 15 countries across the world where extreme poverty is rising per World Poverty Clock data, 13 are currently in Africa. But while countries like Ethiopia – and outiside the top ten, Ghana and Mauritania – are working to end extreme poverty by 2030 and meet the United Nation’s SDG, Nigeria is clearly not as bothered. We have spent the past 30 years spreading poverty as widely as possible.
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