From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja

Statistician General of the Federation (SG), Dr Simon Harry, has said that  the poverty profile report of Nigeria which was 40.09 per cent, conducted in 2018 and 2019, is on the high side.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Sun, in Abuja, Harry said that in the report,  the poverty profile of Nigeria  was 40.09 per cent,  meaning that about 81 million Nigerians are poor.

Referring to the 2018  report by Transparency International, the SG said that when Nigeria’s poverty profile is compared to other countries’ result, Nigeria’s poverty profile was a bit higher, indicating that TI must have been right in their comparison.

“TI  is free to compare the poverty profile of Nigeria vis a vis the poverty profile of other countries of the world. So, if that of Nigeria is higher than that of other countries, they may not have been wrong in declaring  Nigeria a poverty capital of the world. One, because if you look at the population of Nigeria, over 200 million with a  population growth rate of about 3.2  per cent, we are having a growth rate that is certainly below the poverty rate.

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“The standard says that for a country to be fully out of poverty,  the growth rate seams to double the population growth rate. But in the case of Nigeria, that hasn’t been the case,” he said.

On the poverty survey, which the bureau plans to embark on, the SG noted that the idea was not to discredit the report of TI, rather the survey is conducted every five years.

“For us, starting preparation for another poverty studies  is not because  we want to counteract what TI said but it is part of our mandate and that is why, today, we are preparing to conduct another poverty studies for us to  assess properly——what has changed between 2018 and 2019 having gone about two  to four years now. The situation would have changed either forward or backward. So, it is a mandatory exercise that, after every five years, we just have to do that. And if you calculate very well from 2018 to 2021, we are talking of three to four years now. The poverty studies we are conducting now is quite different from the one that was  conducted in 2018.

“ That of 2018 was Nigerian Living Standard Survey, while the one that is currently going on is Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) studies which appear to be more comprehensive in determining the poverty profile of a country than the Living Standards  Survey. So,  we decided to conduct this one so that we would   examine in a more comprehensive way the poverty status of Nigeria in the area of health, education, standard of living and in the area of labour force. So, that is the essence of the MPI that is currently going on now. But beyond MPI we are equally planning to conduct in 2022 the Nigerian Living Standard Survey.