The 10 poorest states in Nigeria owe local and foreign creditors about N1.18tn, according to data from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
- Wife Of Victim
The NBS, in its National Multidimensional Poverty Index report,
disclosed that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor.
The NBS said 63 per cent of Nigerians were poor due to a lack of
access to health, education, living standards, employment, and security.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index offered a multivariate form
of poverty assessment, identifying deprivations across health, education,
living standards, work, and shocks.
The report presented the level of poverty in each state of the
country.
The NBS report showed Sokoto, Bayelsa, Gombe, Jigawa, and
Plateau were the top five poorest states in 2022.
These states were followed by Yobe, Kebbi, Taraba. Ebonyi, and
Zamfara.
It was observed that
the top 10 poorest states had a total of 43.99 million poor people, which was
33.08 per cent of the total population of poor people in Nigeria.
Sokoto led the poorest, with 90.5 per cent of people in the
state poor. It is followed by Bayelsa with 88.5 per cent poor people, Gombe
with 86.2 per cent, Jigawa with 84.3 per cent, and Plateau with 84 per cent.
Yobe had 83.5 per cent of its population as poor, Kebbi had 82.2
per cent and Taraba had 79.4 per cent.
Both Ebonyi and Zamfara states each had 78 per cent of their
total population poor.
The NBS report noted that 65 per cent of poor Nigerians (86
million) were in the North, while 35 per cent (nearly 47 million) were in the
South.
The report noted, “Overall, 65 per cent of poor people – 86
million people live in the North, while 35 per cent – nearly 47 million – live
in the South. In general, a disparity between North and South is evident in
both incidence and intensity of multidimensional poverty, with the North being
poorer.
“However, the level and number of poor people needs to be
addressed in all zones – each of which are home to between 11 and 20 million
poor people except North-West, which has 45 million poor people due to its
larger population and higher level of poverty.”
It also noted that 72 per cent of people in rural areas were
poor. It was the same for 42 per cent of people in urban areas.
Aside from struggling with a high poverty rate, the 10 poorest
states also struggled with local and foreign debts.
Data from the subnational debt report as of December 2022 showed
that the states had N998bn domestic debt and $386.16m foreign debt (about
N178.28bn, using the exchange rate of the Central Bank of Nigeria of N461.68 to
a dollar as of Tuesday).
From the debt data, Plateau had the highest local debt of
N149.01bn, then Bayelsa (N146.37bn) and Gombe (N139.32bn).
Zamfara had local debt of N112.2bn, Yobe had N90.76bn, Sokoto
had N90.6bn, Taraba had N87.96bn, and Ebonyi had N76.5bn.
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