COVID-19: The poor will get poorer – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed concern that the spread of COVID-19 will worsen the already bad economic standing of poor families globally.

He spoke in a recorded video message to a virtual high-level UN meeting on trends, options and strategies in poverty eradication across the world.

• Coronavirus: 39.4m Nigerians may be jobless in 6 months – FG
• Poverty, Insecurity: No Northern leader should be happy today – Emir Sanusi

The event, which took place at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday, also served as the official inauguration of the Alliance for Poverty Reduction, an initiative of the President of the General Assembly, Prof. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande.

Buhari, in a statement Wednesday by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, also expressed concern that 10 percent of the world’s population were classified as living in extreme poverty.

He said a large percentage of Nigerians lived in various stages of poverty and that the prospect of the population sliding further into extreme poverty was real.

He, however, said his government was striving to combat and reverse the trend, adding that his administration was doing a lot to ensure that the bad economic standing of the poor was mitigated in Nigeria.

He said the recently developed Economic Sustainability Plan, aimed at stimulating the economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic would extend protection to very poor Nigerians and other vulnerable groups through pro-poor spending.