As Nigerians Grapple With Escalating Poverty

 By Adeze Ojukwu  

The excruciating pain and penury arising from soaring food and fuel prices have left many Nigerians seething with anger and rage. 

Since independence, the country has had a history of bad governance, characterized by graft, tribalism and unrest, due to political, cultural and religious vulnerabilities. But never in its chequered history has the society been embroiled in such massive levels of imbroglio, which peaked during the eight-year devastating hegemony of the immediate past administration. 

Buhari Women, Poverty And Budget Padding

 By Ikechukwu Amaechi

Two stories broke in the last one week that tend to amplify the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari’s goal of running Nigeria completely aground continues apace even as his administration, on the home stretch, and its vuvuzelas, continue to play the ostrich.

*Farouq and Buhari

First, the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, disclosed on November 17, that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. That represents about 63 per cent of the estimated population of about 218 million people.

Ordinarily, this information shouldn’t surprise anyone considering that Nigeria had adorned the infamous ‘World Poverty Capital’ badge since 2018. World Bank data had shown since 2016 that four in every ten Nigerians live below the poverty line of $1.9 per day. Two years later, the country was declared world’s poverty capital by the Brookings Institution, knocking off India from the inglorious perch.