Nigeria Overtakes India as Country with the most People in Extreme Poverty.

Contrasting poverty of Nigerians living at the foot 

of the lake close to President Buhari's sprawling Asokoro mansion 

| Photo: BREAKING TIMES

Nigeria has overtaken India as the country with the most people in extreme poverty. For context, India has 5 times the population of Nigeria.  According to World Bank standards, living in extreme poverty is living on less than $1.90 (N680) per day. People living in extreme poverty are unable to meet even the barest minimal needs for survival.

In 2015, the UN set up the Sustainable Development Goals, and the first of them is to “eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030”. However to achieve this globally, 90 people need to leave poverty every minute to eradicate poverty totally by 2030; and to achieve this in Africa, 57 people have to leave every minute; and in Nigeria, 12 people per minute.

As you can imagine, this is not the case. In fact the opposite is the case. On the average, 9 people are entering extreme poverty every minute, and Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo are both responsible for the 9. And individually, Nigeria has about 7 people going into poverty every minute.

By Eugene Boahene.

Full story at The Breaking Times.