Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina | File Image
Adesina: 65% of the poor, that’s 86 million people live in northern Nigeria while 35% nearly 47 million live in the South
By Valentine Amanze
The President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, has decried Nigeria’s rising poverty level.
Adesina made the lamentation during the 90th birthday lecture of a former head of state Yakubu Gowon in Abuja on Friday.
Adesina said addressing the poverty level was key to Nigeria becoming a global player and leading the African continent.
“The National Bureau of Statistics, NVS in 2022 estimated that 63% of persons living within Nigeria plus 133 million people at the time are multi-dimensionally poor.
“It also states that over half of the population of Nigeria cook with charcoal wood, other than clean out energy, high deprivations are also apparent nationally in sanitation, health care, food security, and housing poverty,” he said on Friday.
“It is particularly extreme in rural areas where millions of people have been forgotten and abandoned.
“The gravity of the situation is even worse in northern Nigeria.”
He said, “As we speak today, 65% of the poor, that’s 86 million people live in northern Nigeria while 35% nearly 47 million live in the South.”
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According to him, the level of poverty has led to crimes and a general fall in the standards of living among Nigerians.
“The level of suffering, helplessness, and abandonment are got in our hope and drowning communities and people in despair as economic activities plummet,” Adesina said.
“Consequently, the criminal economy is ending the real economy of Nigeria.”
But he was optimistic that the trend would change.
His words: “To address the situation, urgent and comprehensive efforts are needed to restore security and law and order to protect lives, property, and farmlands and to restore normalcy to traumatized zones.”
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