More Nigerians to Fall Into Poverty as World Bank Predicts 100 Million Poor Nigerians by 2022

The World Bank has said more Nigerians are expected to fall below poverty line by 2022 due to the negative impacts of COVID-19 on Africa’s largest economy.

The multilateral financial institution estimated that the number of poor people in Nigeria will rise by 10 million from around 90 million to 100 million by 2022.

World Bank disclosed this during its Nigeria Development Update virtual event, titled ‘Rising to the challenge: Nigeria’s COVID-19 response’.

Marco Hernandez, an economist with the bank, during his presentation, said prior to COVID-19 about 2 million Nigerians were expected to fall into poverty this year due to the disparity in population growth and economic growth.

He said, “With the COVID-19, the recession is likely to push an additional 6.6 million Nigerians into poverty in 2020, bringing the total newly poor to 8.6 million this year.

“This implies an increase in the total number of poor in Nigeria from about 90 million in 2020 to about 100 million in 2022. Northern states are more likely to be affected.”

The bank attributed the increase in poverty number to vulnerable employment, fewer remittances and too many people close to the poverty line.

Speaking on the bank’s portfolio in Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank Country Director, said, “There are actually three different ways of looking at the size of our portfolio.

“The first is how much concessional finance. If you look at how much our board has approved in terms of this financing, at the middle of 2018, is about $7bn.”

He added, “Since then and up till now, they’ve approved another $3bn in terms of financing. So, that brings us to $10bn and then with the $1.5bn that’s being considered in December, it will take it to somewhere around $11.5bn. That’s what the board has approved.”