By John Okoh
The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS has said that 82.9 million Nigerians are ‘poorest of the poor.’ The number is 40 per cent of the estimated population of 200 million persons.
Disclosing this in its 2019 Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria study released on Monday, the Bureau showed that on average, 4 out of 10 individuals in Nigeria has real per capital expenditures below N137,430 per year. The study, which was conducted by NBS between September of 2018 and October of 2019, is the latest round of the Nigeria Living Standard Survey, NLSS in a decade. The NLSS is the official survey that is the basis for measuring poverty and living standards.
According to the NBS, 22,110 households were sampled across 36 states including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with the exclusion o Borno State because of the Boko Haram insurgency there.
On the urban and rural scale, the study found that 18.04 percent poverty rate exists in the urban areas, while 52.10 percent poverty exists in the rural areas
On the state by state basis, the study found that Sokoto and Taraba were the worst affected with 87.73 percent and 87.72 percent poverty rate respectively, while Lagos and Delta state led the chat on the less poverty ravaged states with 6.50 percent and 6.02 percent.
