Peter Obi, the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, has issued a stark warning regarding the deepening economic crisis in Nigeria, specifically highlighting a report that places the national poverty rate at 63%.
In a statement released on March 16, 2026, Obi referenced a new policy study conducted by Agora Policy with support from the Nigeria Economic Stability and Transformation Programme and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
This research indicates that poverty in Nigeria surged from a baseline of approximately 40% prior to recent economic reforms to its current level of 63%, translating to more than 140 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.
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The data presented in the Agora Policy study suggests that the sharpest increase in poverty occurred following the removal of the petrol subsidy and the harmonization of foreign exchange rates.
These reforms triggered a significant rise in the cost of transportation, food, and other essential services, which eroded the purchasing power of low-income households.
The report also highlights a widening poverty gap, which grew from 31.6% to over 45%, signaling that those already living in poverty have fallen into even deeper levels of deprivation.
While the government introduced social protection measures such as cash transfers to mitigate these effects, the study noted that these interventions only moderately reduced the poverty rate to roughly 56.2%, often due to implementation delays and the limited scale of the assistance.
Obi characterized the current economic trajectory as a national crisis, arguing that an economy cannot be described as improving when the majority of its citizens are becoming poorer.
He criticized the contrast between the extreme hardship faced by ordinary Nigerians who have resorted to reducing food consumption and trekking long distances to save on transport costs—and the continued lavish spending patterns of the political class.
He maintained that successful economic reforms must be people-centered and should not result in the destruction of small businesses or the widening of inequality.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) mirrored these sentiments, describing the 63% poverty rate as a damning verdict on President Bola Tinubu’s neoliberal economic policies.
The party stated that the promised benefits of subsidy removal, such as improved funding for health and education, have yet to materialize three years into the administration.
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In response, the All Progressives Congress (APC) defended the reforms, stating that the previous subsidy and foreign exchange regimes were existential threats to the nation’s survival and that the current hardship is a transient but necessary phase in building a more resilient economy.Would you like me to research the government’s specific response to these poverty statistics?
Source: The sun.ng
