They made this disclosure during a virtual event on Nigeria’s Development which had the theme ‘Rising to the challenge: Nigeria’s COVID-19 response’.
The bank projected that the number of poor Nigerians will increase from the current 90 million to about 100 million in the next two years due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s economy.
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During a presentation, an economist with the bank, Marco Hernandez, stated that before the COVID-19 pandemic, some 2 million Nigerians were expected to fall into poverty in 2020 as population growth outpaced economic growth.
Punch quoted Marco Hernandez saying: “With the COVID-19, the recession is likely to push an additional 6.6 million Nigerians into poverty in 2020, bringing the total newly poor to 8.6 million this year. “This implies an increase in the total number of poor in Nigeria from about 90 million in 2020 to about 100 million in 2022. Northern states are more likely to be affected”.
