Nigeria’s poverty reduction goals threatened

• Rising inflation, insecurity, weak GDP stall Agenda 2050

By Chinelo Obogo

Nigeria’s ambition to lift 80 million citizens out of poverty by 2050 is facing mounting challenges as worsening economic conditions continue to erode progress, Daily Sun’s analysis has shown.

With food inflation surging, insecurity spreading and GDP growth faltering, key pillars of the Federal Government’s Agenda 2050 are under pressure, casting doubt on the country’s long-term development targets.

President, African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, recently expressed concerns over Nigeria’s GDP per capita, which currently stands at $824, representing a drastic fall from the $1,847 during the country’s independence in 1960.

Adesina said this was an indication of the deteriorating standard of living and rising poverty across the country.

In 2023, the World Bank projected that the poverty rate in Nigeria was estimated at 38.9 per cent, which meant that 87 million Nigerians were living below the poverty line, with over 54 per cent of the population expected to be living in poverty by the end of 2024. The bank also projected that without substantial intervention, the poverty rate could climb to 52 per cent by 2026.

The situation was worse in rural areas, where the poverty rate was reported to be at 75.5 per cent as of April 2025, compared to 41.3 per cent in urban centers. Nigeria also emerged as the country with the highest number of extremely poor people globally, which accounted for 19 per cent of the extremely poor population in Sub-Saharan Africa, a figure that translated to about 106 million people living on less than $2.15 per day as of April 2025.

The World Bank projections between 2023 and 2025 showed a continuous increase in poverty. The organisation said 10 million Nigerians were pushed into poverty in 2023 due to high inflation and stagnant incomes, causing the poverty rate to increase to around 46 per cent.  The World Bank said that by 2025, an additional 13 million Nigerians could be living below the poverty line, further worsening the economic crisis. While the World Bank states that economic reforms could reduce the poverty rate to 44 per cent by 2026, the current situation shows the urgent need for effective policy changes.

Analysts say that a major cause of this worsening poverty crisis is the surge in food inflation. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported a food inflation rate of 27.96 per cent in December 2023 and 39.84 per cent in December 2024. While the food inflation rate saw a decrease to 23.51 per cent in February 2025, partly due to a change in the base year for measurement, the previous increases have severely eroded the purchasing power of ordinary Nigerians.

Compounding the challenges caused by inflation is the low average income for a large portion of the working population. As of 2024, 37 per cent of employed Nigerians earned less than N100,000 per month. In Lagos, a report by HR startup PaidHR revealed that 78 per cent of workers earn below N100,000 with an average salary of just N60,000. This data shows the economic difficulty faced by many Nigerians as they struggle to afford basic necessities such as housing, food, and transportation, especially with the current minimum wage at N70,000.

The removal of petrol subsidies in May 2023 exacerbated the economic hardship. Petrol prices surged from N238.11 per litre before the subsidy removal to N545.83 per litre in June 2023 and reached N1,184.83 per litre by October 2024, a 87.88 per cent increase. Although prices have since slightly decreased to N890 per litre by April 2025, the initial increase severely worsened transportation costs causing the average cost of transport fare to rise by 22.12 per cent between October 2023 and October 2024. Additionally, house rents across major cities have increased drastically by 200 per cent between 2023 and 2024.

Adding to the severe hardship on Nigerians, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) approved a 50 per cent tariff hike for telecom companies in early 2025, the first such increase in over a decade. The minimum call rate has now increased from N6.40 to N9.60 per minute, and internet data prices have also surged by as much as 65 per cent for some plans.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Household Expectations Survey for July 2024 revealed the extent to which basic necessities dominate household spending. Nigerians say they allocate 54.9 per cent of their income to food and other household items and 30.2 per cent to transportation. A separate report showed that transportation costs alone consume approximately 48 per cent of Nigerians’ income, while 35.4 per cent of income is expected to be spent on education.

As a panacea, experts have urged higher investment in agriculture and infrastructure to ensure food security and economic stability.

They also called for the expansion of social safety nets by implementing and scaling up programmes like cash transfers to protect vulnerable populations.

Structural Reforms is another option on the table and this entails addressing systemic issues such as corruption and inefficiencies in public service delivery.

Speaking at a recent policy dialogue hosted in Abuja, Professor Chika Okonkwo, an economist at the University of Nigeria, warned that without urgent structural reforms, the government’s ambition to lift 80 million Nigerians out of poverty under its Agenda 2050 framework could remain unattainable.

Corroborating, Dr. Hadiza Lawal, a development economist and fellow at the Centre for Social Policy Innovation, stressed the need for a more robust social safety net system.

According to her, the government must expand cash transfer programmes, improve their transparency and link them to economic empowerment initiatives.

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