Buhari's govt set to lift 100m Nigerians from poverty in 2020

The government of President Muhammadu Buhari would lift no fewer than 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 2020.

The government intends to achieve this feat by creating an enabling environment for small scale businesses to thrive.

The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, disclosed this in an interview with NTA.

Ahmed's conversation was quoted and published on the ministry’s twitter handle Monday, January 6, 2019.

Based on the president’s directives, she noted that the country had to move fast to make the kind of change needed in the country.

She said: “In 2020, we want to move very fast because we realized that going at the steady rate we are doing is not going to make the kind of change that the president has directed must happen.

"The president has directed that we must pull 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and for all of us ministers, that is our major focus.

“So, we have to make sure that we are creating more jobs and reducing unemployment, and pulling as many Nigerians as possible out of poverty.

"And that is the reason why when we did the finance bill, you will find that the bill was largely targeted at making businesses easy for the small and the very small businesses. This is because we believe that is where the economy needs to really grow and stabilize from," she added.

Nigeria's poverty index

According to data released by the World Poverty Clock in June 2019, a total of 93.7 million Nigerians now live in extreme poverty.

It was first revealed in June 2018 that Nigeria had overtaken India as the nation with the highest number of people living in extreme poverty across the world, with an estimated 86.9 million Nigerians measured to be living on less than $1.90 (N684) a day.

According to available data courtesy of the World Poverty Clock, a web tool produced by World Data Lab, that figure has increased to 93.7 million in June 2019.

4.5 Nigerians slip into extreme poverty every minute with 47.7% of Nigeria's estimated 196.5 million people affected. This figure has risen from the 44.2% of the total population that was recorded in June 2018.