By Stephen Ejiofo
Former Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections, Peter Obi, has re-echoed the recent damning world bank report that by 2021, Nigeria will have over 100 million people living in poverty.
Addressing the crowd of youths drawn from the five states of the southeast in an event held in Awka, tagged “PDP Youths Summit”, Obi drew their attention to the sad economic status of Nigeria in the global poverty index.
“Your country is drifting, it is collapsing. And if you don’t do anything, it will take its revenge on you,” Obi said.
“The World Bank released a report, go and read that report. This year alone, 11 million Nigerians will fall into poverty.
“The 11 million is on top of the 100 million that is already there. That means by the end of this year, Nigeria will have over 110 million people living in poverty. It is important to know that of this 11 million person falling into poverty, eight million are youths.”
Peter Obi reminded the youths that by 2008 the PDP government has paid off all debt the country owed, and by 2014 the nation’s economy was growing at the rate of 6%. But the APC-led government threw Nigeria back to the status of a heavily indebted country with over 8 billion dollars already borrowed.
“Figures from the 2019 poverty and economic inequality in Nigeria report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show that 40per cent of the total population, or almost 83 million Nigerians, already live below the poverty line of N137,430 per year. Before 2021, between 15 and 20million people will be added to the pool of poor Nigerians.”
“The head of world bank mission in Nigeria, Mr. Shubham Chaudhuri said without a strong policy response, “Nigeria risks repeating the experience of the 1980s shocks, which set back Nigeria’s development progress by decades”.
