Nigeria

President Buhari says he will lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty

Wednesday, July 01, 2020 at 11:22 AM by Kess Ewubare

- Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, has said the federal government plans to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty

- Buhari made the statement on Tuesday, June 30, during a virtual meeting with the United Nations (UN)

- The president stated that the transformation of the agricultural sector to ensure food security is crucial to poverty eradication

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Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, has said the federal government plans to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.

He told the United Nations (UN) in a virtual meeting on Tuesday, June 30, that the Nigerian government was serious about poverty eradication, The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reported.

Buhari says he will lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty
Source: UGC

Buhari said his administration has started a new programme of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty within a 10-year period.

The president stated that the efficient management of resources and the transformation of the agricultural sector to ensure food security are crucial to poverty eradication.

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He also pointed out that education plays a crucial role in sustainable development and has immense capacity to eradicate poverty.

Buhari said his regime is focused on reducing poverty by including massive investment in education, especially of the girl-child.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has revealed two key factors that may plunge Nigeria into a severe economic recession the worst since the 1980s.

The two key factors are the crash in global oil prices and the ravaging coronavirus pandemic, according to a report by Vanguard.

The newspaper reports that the World Bank in a statement titled Nigeria In Times of COVID-19: Laying Foundations for a Strong Recovery, estimated that Nigeria’s economy would likely contract by 3.2% in 2020.

Despite the economic diversification rhetorics by the government, oil still represents more than 80% of Nigeria’s exports and 50% of the overall government revenue. Thus, as the oil prices dropped globally, the government revenue is expected to fall from an already low 8% of GDP in 2019 to a projected 5% in 2020

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Nigeria confirmed its index Covid-19 case late February 2020. Months after, the country now has 22,614 confirmed cases out of which 7,822 have recovered.

Thus far, 549 have died from the virus complications. The World report showed that the human cost of COVID-19 could be high while the shock was projected to push about five million more Nigerians into poverty in 2020.

“While before the pandemic, the number of poor Nigerians was expected to increase by about two million, largely due to population growth, the number would now increase by seven million, with a poverty rate projected to rise from 40.1% in 2019 to 42.5% in 2020," the bank said.

In another news report, Nigerian author and social media critic, Reno Omokri recently took to social media to share his thoughts about the ending poverty.

According to him, not only can salary not solve poverty, it is also a cage. Omokri who said that salaries come in small and big sizes added that as long as one's ability to control his own time is in the hands of someone else, that person is still poor.