No fewer than 133 million Nigerians, representing 63 per cent of the population are currently living in multi-dimensional poverty, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed onn Thursday.
Of the total, 105.98 million poor Nigerians are located in rural areas compared to 16.97 million in urban areas.
In August 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari committed to empowering an additional 100 million people to escape extreme poverty by 2030.
This implied that on average, 10 million people must be lifted out of poverty each year, starting in 2020.
However, with the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on livelihoods, and unemployment, the challenge was more evident.
According to the Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2022 Survey, which was released yesterday by the statistical agency, there are high deprivations in sanitation, time to healthcare, food insecurity, and housing.