Nigeria is the richest country in Africa. There is no doubt about that.
But did you know Nigeria is often referred to as the poverty capital of the world?
Why Is that?
This is because, out of every 10 people living in poverty in the world,
there are 9 Nigerians among them.
Yes!! Surprising right?
Nigeria despite being the richest country in Africa
has the poorest people in the world. How is that possible?
In this video, we are going to be seeing why Nigeria is so rich
and at the same time has the poorest people in the world.
Nigeria is an oil-rich country. When we say rich, we mean billions of dollars rich. Not
just a small oil-producing country where oil contributes to a small part of its GDP.
Nigeria is the sixth-largest Exporter Of petroleum in the world. Nigeria is a wealthy
nation majorly because of its oil, but over 100 million people in the country live in poverty.
The Major reason for this inequality is because wealth is so concentrated among the rich,
so much so that, the top 5 richest people in Nigeria have enough money,
power, and resources that can actually end the poverty in Africa’s most populous nation.
So Why is Nigeria, Africa’s Richest Country still Poor despite having these elite rich individuals?
There are several Reasons Why.
One of the reasons is that the country’s government and some economic Elites Have
Shown Little to “No efforts” at all when it comes to investing and developing in areas
that could help eradicate poverty. Health and Education spending makes up only 3% and 5% of
the national budget respectively despite all the money generated from the oil revenues.
Neglect in Funding and investing in the education sector has been going on for years. This has
pushed the illiteracy rate to go up as high as 66%. A recent report by UNICEF suggests that
over 10 million children are out of school in the country despite being in the school-age window.
The public health care system in Nigeria is very disastrous and is unable to cover
the entire population of Nigeria. Infant and maternal mortality in Nigeria are alarmingly
high as women and children die every day because of the lack of basic health care.
The labor laws in Nigeria can be described as highly ineffective. This is because the
country’s minimum wage is “extremely low”, and there is a significant gender wage gap.
Nigeria was also ranked as one of the worst in the Oxfam BFIs Global Gender Gap report.
An average Nigerian woman will earn 3 thousand dollars less than her male counterparts.
A report by Ventures Africa states that Nigeria’s tax system benefits
only the rich at the same time crushing the middle and lower class individuals.
Everything in Nigeria is taxed. For example taxes on the use of commodities like TVs and radios hurt
not only middle-class individuals but highly affect small businesses which struggle to
break even. On the other hand, big businesses and rich individuals benefit from tax waivers.
Back in 2013, a report by Newsweek found out that 2.5 billion dollars were given out in
tax breaks for the rich between 2011 and 2013. This is money that if injected into the health
and education sector will bring about a lot of difference. All these factors intensify as
you move up the Northern part of the country, where the poverty rate ranges from 76% to 86%.
Why is Nigeria poor?
Lack of access to propper
education, poor healthcare and economic inequality have all contributed to this.
How can the problem of Economic inequality be solved?
For the economic inequality to be be eradicated, the nigerian government
needs to step up to improve on health, education and economic conditions by regulating taxes and
supporting small businesses with incentives or small tax breaks every now and then.
The people of Nigeria are so poor and the government can do something
about it to improve the lives of it citizens.
Sadly, nothing is being done and there is even no effort in attempting to do something about it.
Despite all this, the country still gets, richer and richer thanks to the exploitation
of its never ending oil. Sadly though, despite being the biggest economy in Africa,
Nigeria ranks around 160 out of 177 countries on the scale of the Human Development Index.
Poverty in Nigeria is mainly a rural issue and experts advise that access to banking and
microcredit services are crucial as they can help local farmers invest in agriculture. They can use
this loans to get high yielding seeds, machines, and vehicles to increase productivity and output.
Since the government cannot employ everybody, there is only one way out.
Which is Entrepreneurship. The government should highly encourage and support young
entrepreneurs and small startups and businesses.
Entrepreneurship is key to reducing Nigeria’s poverty.
Nigeria is a large country with a population of more than 180 million people,
making it the most populous country in Africa.
Unlike East African countries, in the west many regions such as Nigeria benefit from a tropical
climate with lush vegetation and a diverse range of crops that grow all year round.
Just this is enough to highlight how important agriculture is in reducing poverty.
So investing in agriculture or agricultural startups is
one step the government can take in eradicating poverty in the country.
Nigeria should be one of the biggest exporters of agricultural
products to other countries and Nigerian citizens should reap from the profits of this trade.
In general, whenever Nigeria experiences period of economic growth,
it is as a result of making improvements in agriculture. Agriculture provides Jobs, food,
and raw materials for other sectors. No matter how much or how big the service sector strives,
agriculture still remains the most important aspect in the country’s economy.
It has been noticed that people with larger farmlands, people with access to loans to invest
in agriculture as well as people whose farms were closer to the markets all showed lower poverty
rates than the rest.Integrating thousands of households into local markets and teaching
more advanced agricultural techniques are also essential aspects to reducing poverty in Nigeria.
In many ways, this implies more government intervention,
at least to invest in the basic infrastructure such as roads and cheap public transportation
so that people are given the opportunity to go to town and sell their crops.
Nigeria is another good example of how poverty and macroeconomic shocks are related.
It has been just as relevant to the recent global economic crisis as it was to previous crisis in
the 19 80s. Back then, it led to a massive surge in poverty from 20% to 40% with unemployment,
inflation, debt and a fiscal deficit. Despite the oil money that started flowing in, where did that
money go? Nigeria is part of that group of African countries that has no real reason to account for
its perpetually high poverty rates. No other reason than corruption or incompetence perhaps.
After many attempts to stabilize the economy, macroeconomic reforms in the 19 80s finally
worked well. Surprisingly, the positive effects of the economy did not trickle
down to the rest of the population. The same has happened in many countries and on the
contrary poverty increased instead. I said before, poverty in Nigeria is mostly rural.
Macroeconomic shocks tend to affect rural areas much more than cities.
Poverty, for example, is expected to decline by more than 40% in cities,
but it is to increase by over 7% in rural areas.
Click video showing on your screen to see the ten reachest States in Nigeria.
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