COVID-19: FG says 109m Nigerians ’ll be in poverty by 2022

The Federal Government on Tuesday said the total number of poor Nigerians would be about 109 million by the end of next year.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said 11 million Nigerians were likely to fall into poverty by the end of 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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She spoke in Abuja at the ongoing National COVID-19 Summit with the theme: ‘Pushing through the Last Mile to End the Pandemic and Build Back Better.’

The minister represented by Director-General, Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, said before the pandemic, about two million Nigerians were expected to fall into poverty by 2020 as population growth outpaced economic growth.

She said with COVID-19, the recession pushed an additional 6.6m Nigerians into poverty in 2020, bringing the total newly poor to 8.6 million in the same year.

“This implies an increase in the total number of the poor in Nigeria from about 90m in 2020 to about 109m in 2022,” she said.

She cited vulnerable employment; receiving fewer remittances and being close to the poverty line as being responsible for the increase in poverty.