Yemi Kale, a former National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) statistician-general, has revealed that 89 million Nigerians which makes up for 40% of the country’s total population, live in poverty.
Kale gave a speech at The Platform Nigeria’s Independence Day celebration, “Rebuilding Our Nation,” as the group chief economist and managing director of research and trade intelligence at Afreximbank.
According to the economist, Nigeria has the second-highest number of people living poverty in the world, after India.
“To grasp the magnitude of this number, we can consider that fewer than 20 of the world’s 195 recognised countries even have a population larger than just Nigeria’s estimated number of poor,” he said.
“And these dynamics are compounding. Together, these trends threaten the very promise of independence that every Nigerian should have the opportunity to thrive at home.
“So what went wrong? Well, there are many reasons, but a large part of it lies in policy missteps and costly delays in implementing needed reforms.
“Key adjustments, some finally underway, should have begun over a decade ago, when warning signs were already evident.
“Acting sooner would have significantly softened the impact on households and businesses, sparing the economy years of compounding fiscal and inflationary pressures.
“Instead, distortive monetary and exchange rate policies lingered, eroding investor confidence and choking off investment.”
Kale stated that although the latest reforms are difficult and unpleasant, “there is really no credible alternative.”
According to the previous head of NBS, implementing the reforms consistently and with integrity will transform Nigeria’s potential into genuine, widely shared prosperity that affects people’s daily lives in ways that go beyond numbers and speeches.
Kale went on to say that since these reforms are unavoidable, the government’s job is not to prevent them.
The managing director of Afreximbank stated that in order to ensure that the transformation process is both socially and economically sound, the government must maintain the policies while rapidly bolstering social protections to cushion poverty.
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