The latest World Bank country assessment on Nigeria paints a sobering picture of a nation struggling to translate economic reforms into meaningful improvements in citizens’ lives.
As of 2025, an estimated 139 million Nigerians are living in poverty — a steep rise from 87 million in 2018. This alarming statistic should jolt the government into urgent, focused action against deepening multidimensional poverty amid worsening economic conditions. Yet, the Tinubu administration has adopted a defensive posture.
At the launch of the October 2025 Nigeria Development Update in Abuja, World Bank Country Director Mathew Verghis acknowledged that recent fiscal and monetary reforms — including subsidy removal, monetary tightening, and exchange rate unification — had achieved some stabilisation gains.
However, Verghis noted that “despite these stabilization gains, many households are still struggling with eroded purchasing power.” According to him, poverty has continued to rise since 2018 due to policy missteps and external shocks such as COVID-19, leaving 139 million Nigerians impoverished in 2025.
The figures mirror the lived experiences of millions of households battling soaring food prices, stagnant incomes, and diminishing purchasing power. They reinforce a long-standing truth: macroeconomic stability has yet to translate into household welfare.
This reflects a persistent contradiction in Nigeria’s economic history — a gulf between policy success on paper and the lived realities of citizens.
Following the report’s release, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, downplayed the World Bank’s poverty figures, arguing that they should be “properly contextualized” within the limitations of global poverty models. He described the $2.15 per day global poverty line as an “analytical construct,” claiming it does not accurately reflect Nigerian income realities.
However, this argument is self-defeating. By dismissing the global standard, the government implicitly highlights the disconnect between official optimism and everyday hardship. If ₦100,000 per month is considered unrealistic as a poverty benchmark, what does that imply about the adequacy of the new ₦70,000 minimum wage in an economy marked by skyrocketing prices?
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the average cost of a healthy diet per adult per day stood at ₦1,255 as of August 2024. That translates to ₦75,300 per month for one adult and nearly ₦400,000 for a family of four. Compared to the minimum wage, the disparity between income and survival is glaring.
For millions, the daily struggle is not about luxury but about affording food. Although food inflation eased to 16.87% in September from 21.87% the previous month, it remains a profound social and moral crisis requiring urgent policy intervention.
The World Bank report also notes that 46% of Nigerians live below the poverty line, with poor households spending up to 70% of their income on food. High inflation, weak state capacity, poor infrastructure, and pervasive insecurity continue to suffocate productivity and domestic markets.
To reverse this trend, government must prioritize reducing inflation — especially food inflation — improving public resource efficiency, and expanding social protection for vulnerable citizens.
Even before this crisis, the 2022 NBS Multidimensional Poverty Index showed that 133 million Nigerians (63% of the population) were poor, with 65% of the poor in the North and 35% in the South. In some states, poverty incidence ranges from 27% in Ondo to 91% in Sokoto.
This persistent failure stems from limited industrialization, declining entrepreneurship, and a harsh business environment that stifles innovation. Economists warn that Nigeria is trapped in “jobless growth,” where GDP expands but living standards stagnate.
The World Bank’s call for Nigeria to strengthen public financial management and ensure measurable development impact for every naira spent is timely. For too long, inefficiency, leakages, and corruption have undermined the capacity of public expenditure to reduce poverty.
To its credit, the Tinubu administration has implemented difficult but necessary reforms to stabilize the economy. However, as the World Bank rightly observed, these are only the first steps. Without complementary reforms — especially in agriculture, energy, and transportation — inflation will persist, and growth will remain narrow and exclusionary.
Federal and state governments must expand social protection program to cushion the poor from reform shocks. Conditional cash transfers, school feeding schemes, and support for smallholder farmers are essential to a humane economic transition.
Equally critical is policy coherence. Nigeria’s fiscal, monetary, and trade policies often move at cross-purposes, undermining potential gains. A unified, evidence-based approach that prioritizes citizens’ welfare over political expediency is vital for sustainable progress.
Inflation control must go hand in hand with boosting domestic food production through mechanization, storage, logistics investment, and value chain strengthening.
At the same time, the government must cut waste, enforce fiscal transparency, and redirect spending towards health, education, and social protection — the true pillars of human development.
Job creation at scale remains non-negotiable. Supporting SMEs, attracting investment into manufacturing and services, and resolving the energy crisis are essential for inclusive growth.
Reforms that stabilize the economy without improving livelihoods are incomplete. Nigeria has the talent, resources, and human capital to lift millions out of poverty within a generation — but only if political will, discipline, and empathy guide governance.
Economic reform is not about numbers; it is about people. Until state policies begin to ease the burden of citizens, Nigeria’s poverty crisis will remain both a moral indictment and a threat to national stability.#newsafro_
