In a meeting held in Washington on Wednesday, World Bank President, Dr Jim Kim, announced that Nigeria was among the extremely poor countries in the world. Other mentioned countries were: India, China, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Kim had said "the fact is that two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor are concentrated in just five countries: India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"If you add another five countries, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya, the total grows to 80 per cent of the extreme poor,” he added.
Okonjo-Iweala clarified Dr. Kim's criterion by saying the number of poor people in a country irrespective of the country’s level of development was the parameter used to rate Nigeria among nations with high poverty level.
According to her, the phenomenon of large number of poor people is peculiar with middle-income countries which Nigeria belonged.
"Indian is a middle-income country, one of the largest economies in the world like Nigeria, is a big economy, but the largest number of poor people in the world reside in Indian, China and other places," she said.
"Most middle-income countries, including Brazil have large number of poor people that is the reality of today and Nigeria is no exception.
"And when the World Bank president was talking he also talked about those countries. He mentioned that India is doing well and it has a large number of poor people.
"So, we should not try to single Nigeria out. The phenomenon we have in Nigeria is that we are growing but there are poor people everywhere.’’
As a correctional, Ngozi had advised that the focus of all Nigerians, at this point, should be to proffer solutions to these problems, while learning from what other improving countries are doing - and not to criticise the incumbent government.
"Nobody says that everything is fine but we are learning and where we make some progress like other countries, we should also acknowledge it,’’ she stressed.
She said that the Federal Government was making efforts in different areas of the nation’s economy to reduce poverty and improve living standards of citizens.
How come they say we are poor and yet, we are said to have the best economy in Nigeria?
ReplyDeleteAll in d space of one week. Something is not right.