Nigeria’s poverty incidence is mainly skewed to the northern states of the country, with 19 states in the region recording an average poverty rate of 58 percent, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show.
That’s alarming when compared with an average of 24.3 percent rate recorded in the 17 states in the southern region, bringing to spotlight the high illiteracy rate and the weak appetite for education in the Northern states of the country.
“There is a strong positive correlation between illiteracy levels and poverty, hence wherever you see a high illiteracy rate there is always a corresponding high level of poverty,” Oluwapelumi Joseph, head of investor relations at Lagos- based advisory firm, Africapractice, said.
“From a productivity standpoint, there are not many commercial enterprises in the North due to the recurring insecurity, and this has made most states in the region highly dependent on government aid,” Joseph told BusinessDay.
Holistically, four out of every 10 Nigerian or 89.2 million Nigerians have been reported by the NBS to be poor, spending less than N137,430 per year, the equivalent of N376.5 or $1 per day, pushed by states in the North. Similarly, income inequality, which shows the spread between the haves and the have-nots in the country, was estimated at 35.1 (100 means perfect inequality of expenditure distribution while 0 means perfect equality).
States of Sokoto, Taraba and Jigawa reported the highest poverty incidence in the period with a poverty rate of 87.73 percent, 87.72 percent and 87.02 percent, respectively.
This was followed by Ebonyi, Adamawa and Zamfara with 79.76 percent, 75.41 percent and 73.98 percent.
On the other hand Lagos, Delta, Osun, Ogun and Oyo, all southern states, recorded the least poverty rate at 4.5 percent, 6.02 percent, 8.52 percent, 9.32 percent and 9.83 percent, respectively.
The success of the South in reducing poverty cannot be divorced from its investment in education and health of people in the region.
In Nigeria where education is basic, free and compulsory for children up to 15 years, no less than 10.5 million aged 5-14 years are out of school, according to the latest data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The majority of children who are unable to access safe and quality education are situated in the north where across the region net attendance rate is at 53 percent.
Bauchi, Niger, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Gombe, Adamawa, Taraba and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja are the worst 10 states with about 8 million children not in school and an average enrolment rate of only 57 percent.
The situation is dire in the north-eastern region as the insurgency has left 2.8 million children in need of education-in-emergencies support across Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa.
In the northeastern states, at least 802 schools remain closed and 497 classrooms listed as destroyed, while 1,392 have been damaged. Parents and guardians are petrified of sending their wards to school over the spate of kidnapping and vandalism of school property by terrorists.
The out-of-school situation is worse for female children in the north-east and north-west where more than half of the girls are not in school.
According to the UNICEF, 29 percent and 35 percent of Muslim children in north-eastern and north-western states, respectively, receive Qur’anic education, which does not include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy.
The lack of quality education in that region limits the ability of its people to engage in high-level economic activities and weakens the productivity of most of its labour force.
This is especially important as every 1 percent growth in GDP only increased employment by 0.1 percent between 2004 and 2014, World Bank reports citing an academic study which suggests growth in sectors that cannot create mass employment perhaps due to skills requirement.
Per capita and education component of states’ Human Development Index shows that the North underperforms South.
Also, the high birth rate in the north (Jigawa having the highest fertility rate in Nigeria along with Kano and Kebbi) where income per household is low perpetuates poverty unlike in the South where higher literacy rate and investment in education mean lower birth rate.
Even though the rate of poverty in the country declined to 40.2 percent in 2019 from the 62.6 percent recorded a decade ago, there is literally no basis for comparison given that the NBS used a different approach or methodology.
In arriving at the poverty figure, the Abuja-based state-funded data agency said the consumption expenditure approach rather than income is a better way to capture the figure as it “better reflects the achievement of a particular level of welfare (or “utility”) by a household, while income represents the opportunity of reaching a certain level of well-being”.
Furthermore, it also used a sample population of 22,110 households in collating the data.
“It is not possible to compare poverty levels between 2003-04, 2009-10 and 2018-19. In order to compare poverty rates across time, the underlying data should be collected in a similar method,” NBS said in the report.
“It is not possible to compare poverty levels between 2003-04, 2009-10 and 2018-19. In order to compare poverty rates across time, the underlying data should be collected in a similar method,” NBS said in the report.
Analysts say with the current slow economic growth at 2 percent well below birth rate, alongside the increasing rate of unemployment, the level of poverty may have worsened beyond figures reported.
Already, real time data tracked the World’s Poverty Clock places Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world, with some 102.4 million people living in extreme poverty.
Using that data, 1 out of every 2 Nigerian is living below the poverty line of $1.90 per day.
Growth in Nigeria in the last two decades peaked at 8.36 percent in 2010 and declined steadily till the 2016 recession after which growth plateaued around 2 percent, slower than the population is expanding.
This meant per capita income declined sharply from as high as $3,222 during the oil boom in 2014 to $2,028 in 2018, according to World Bank data. In 2010, the per capita income was $2,292.
While economy grew 2.27 percent in 2019, it remained below 3.2 percent population growth rate, according to data from the National Population Commission (NPC).
On the other hand, as many as a quarter of the Nigerian labour force are unemployed. A number of different analysts believe this figure has risen since the last official data was published in the third quarter of 2018.
Compared to a record low of 5.10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010, the latest unemployment figure stands at 23.10 percent in the third quarter of 2018.
Side-by-side, 2010 data suggest Nigerians fared better than they currently are today.
“Be that as it may, given the country’s average growth rate in the last 10 years vis-a-vis population growth rate, it stands to reason that more people may have dropped below the poverty line than this survey result suggests,” said Uche Uwaleke, professor of Finance and Capital Market, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, and former chairman, CIBN, Abuja branch.
Uwaleke argued that income inequality may have widened in light of the jobless nature of GDP growth rates even in periods of high crude oil prices.
“So, to say that in today’s Nigeria, only 4 out of 10 persons are poor – by whatever yardstick – and that economic inequality is low as suggested by the low Gini index leaves much to be investigated,” he said.
MICHAEL ANI & SEGUN ADAMS
