NIGERIA OVERTAKES INDIA IN EXTREME POVERTY RANKING

CNN report  June 26, 2018, by Bukila Adebayo. Excerpts from the report as follows:

Oil-rich Nigeria has seen its fair share of bad news in recent months.  The largest economy in Africa has been hit with a fuel shortage, on top of currency problems and terrorism. “A lot of things that can go wrong, are going wrong at the same time,” said London-based Nigerian accountant Feyi Fawehinmi.  While economically the country is a “complete mess”, Fawehinmi said the corruption situation in Nigeria is getting better under President Buhari, who took office a year ago.

Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) – Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87 million Nigerians, or around half of the country’s population, thought to be living on less than $1.90 a day.

The findings, based on a projection by the World Poverty Clock and compiled by Brookings Institute, show that more than 643 million people across the world live in extreme poverty, with Africans accounting for about two-thirds of the total number.

In Nigeria, as with other countries on the continent, that figure is projected to rise.  By the end of 2018 in Africa as a whole, there will probably be about 3.2 million more people living in extreme poverty than there are today,” the researchers write.

The number of Nigerians falling into extreme poverty grows by roughly six people every minute.