Bloomberg delivers scathing verdict on Nigeria's economy saying country looks set to remain the world's poverty capital

NIGERIA'S economic growth has been described as too sluggish to be effective by US news agency Bloomberg which said that more Nigerians now live in poverty than was the case four years ago when President Muhammadu Buhari came to power.

Describing President  Buhari’s record over the last four years as discouraging, Bloomberg, in a recent report on Nigeria, questioned whether he is up to the task of reviving the economy in his second term. According to Bloomberg, in 2000, over 1.4bn people lived at or below the global poverty line of $1.90 a day but globally, the figure is down with most country's reducing their number of poor citizens but in Nigeria, poverty is rising.

It added that one of humanity’s most hopeful developments in recent decades has been the dramatic drop in extreme poverty, pointing out that Nigeria needs growth to defuse poverty time. At the moment, Nigeria has the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, with an estimated 87m Nigerians, or around half of the country's population, thought to be living on less than $1.90 a day.

A Bloomberg spokesman said: “Today, the number worldwide is about 600m and this remarkable change is mainly due to growth in China and India. Much of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Nigeria, has failed to share in the success.

“A decade ago, Nigeria had far fewer people in extreme poverty than either China or India but today, according to data compiled by the World Data Lab, it has more than both combined. The count stands at more than 90m and has risen both in absolute terms and as a share of the total."

According to Bloomberg, Nigeria’s young and fast-growing population is projected by the United Nations to double in size by 2050, making it the world’s third-biggest. It added that even assuming that the proportion of Nigerians living in extreme poverty stops rising as quickly as it has in recent years, it is still on course to remain extraordinarily high for the foreseeable future.

“Nigeria’s success or failure in confronting extreme poverty will be pivotal for the rest of Africa, too, partly because of its huge population but also because of its outsize influence over its neighbours. The government led by President Muhammadu Buhari, recently re-elected to a second and final four-year term, bears a grave responsibility and one wonders whether a politician known as Baba Go Slow is up to the task.

“His record over the last four years is discouraging as economic growth has barely recovered following the 2014 crash in the price of oil, which remains Nigeria’s biggest export and source of government revenue. Per capita gross domestic product is less than it was when he took office, joblessness has more than tripled, efforts to spur agriculture and other non-oil parts of the economy have failed and foreign direct investment has fallen by more than half since 2010,” Bloomberg added.