Nigeria ranks 146 out of 191 countries on GDP per capita

The World Bank said Nigeria, with an annual GDP per capita of $6,207 in current international dollars, ranks 146 out of 191 countries.

The bank, in its May 2025 edition of Nigeria Development Update (NDU), launched last week in Abuja, said Nigeria’s annual GDP is equivalent to just 4.4 per cent of the per capita income of the leading country, Singapore or 30 per cent of the leading continental African country, Botswana.

The report said that though Nigeria’s economy is gradually picking up, the government must accelerate on a sustained basis to reduce poverty and meet the aspirations of Nigerians.

According to the report, “From a static perspective, Nigeria’s economy needs to grow to boost incomes and meet aspirations. If Nigeria’s current annual economic output was equally distributed, this would be sufficient to eliminate poverty, but it would still leave Nigerians far behind the global prosperity frontier.”

It said with an estimated population in 2024 of about 232.7 million people and a GDP of N277.5 trillion, each Nigerian would have taken home N1.2 million, or about N100,000 per month, if output was divided equally.

“This would imply a standard of living equivalent to almost four times the current poverty line, a huge improvement for the close to 60 per cent of Nigerians who live in families whose breadwinners are not able to produce and earn enough to escape poverty,” the Bank said, adding, “Yet, even if it was divided equally in this way, and adjusting for differences in prices across countries, current annual output is not enough to make Nigerians prosperous.”

The issue of poverty has been a challenging one for Nigeria as the rising inflation, high interest rates, and insecurity have worsened the cost of living crisis in the country.

In 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its multidimensional poverty index (MPI), estimated that about 63 per cent or 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor.

The World Bank, in its April 2025 Poverty and Equity Brief for Nigeria, disclosed that a staggering 75.5 per cent of rural Nigerians are now living below the poverty line, reflecting deepening hardship in the country’s hinterlands.

The report paints a grim picture of worsening economic hardship, widening inequality, and persistent underdevelopment across much of the nation.

While poverty is widespread among urban populations, the report emphasised that the situation is significantly worse in rural areas, where economic stagnation, high inflation, and insecurity have exacerbated living conditions.

“Based on the most recent official household survey data from the National Bureau of Statistics, 30.9 per cent of Nigerians lived below the international extreme poverty line of $2.15 per person per day in 2018/19 before the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report stated.

The bank in the NDU noted that efforts to urgently provide support to the poorest and most economically at risk households should be redoubled and expanded.

It acknowledged the government’s effort to alleviate the added cost of living pressures by the launch of the social assistance programme with the goal of supporting 15 million households with time-bound cash transfers.

However, the report noted that roll-out has been slow, with only 5.6 million households reached so far.

While calling for acceleration of the process, the report noted that alongside macroeconomic reforms and emergency cash support, stronger growth and a robust social protection framework are essential to promote productive livelihoods.

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