THE Computation of Human Development Indices for the UNDP Nigeria Human Development Report (2016) just released by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveals that Sokoto State harbours the highest number of poor people in the country.
In Sokoto State, 89.9 per cent of residents are poor although, on the average, 53.7 of the 197 million Nigerians in 2016 were poor.
“The Incidence of Poverty which is the percentage of Nigerians who are poor is 53.7 percent and the disaggregation by state shows that it is more prevalent (89.9 percent) in Sokoto state, followed by Jigawa state with 86.1 per cent, Rivers and Ebonyi state share 58.9 per cent each, while the lowest state is Osun state with 17.5 per cent”, NBS stated in the report.
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On a zone by zone basis, poverty intensity is more prevalent in Northwest 45 per cent closely followed by Northeast with 44 per cent while Southwest and South East has the lowest, tying at 38 per cent.
Analysis by state shows that at 57 per cent, Rivers State had the highest unemployment rate closely followed by Bayelsa state with 52 per cent and the lowest was Kastina State with three per cent.
According to the report, “39.6 percent of the population has not completed five years of schooling while child school attendance is 23.8 per cent.
“Adults are considered to be malnourished if their BMI is below 18.5 m/kg2.
“Therefore, at 26% poverty cut off, the results show that 6.6 percent of Nigerians are malnourished;
and then