42.69 million underprivileged Nigerians have been denied access to the Federal Government’s N5,000 monthly cash transfer since its start in 2016, according to The Punch’s findings.
The World Bank revealed in the June 2023 edition of the Nigeria Development Update that just 19.4% of Nigerians benefited from the scheme.
With a population of 207.25 million (according to World Bank estimates), this meant that just 40.21 million Nigerians benefited from the cash transfer system.
According to the Washington-based bank, by the end of 2022, about 40% of Nigerians (82.9 million people) will be living on less than the national poverty level.
Commenting on the poverty rate, the bank stated,
“The majority of Nigerians are either poor or economically insecure, just one shock away from falling into poverty. About 40 per cent of Nigerians—82.9 million people— lived on less than the national poverty line in 2018/19.13. An additional one quarter of the population—some 52.6 million people—were economically insecure, at high risk of falling into poverty. The overall poverty situation since then is unlikely to have improved given that GDP per capita has declined since 2019.”
Based on the poverty rate, this meant that 42.69 million poor individuals did not benefit from the Federal Government’s cash distribution programme.
Despite the exclusion, the lending bank highlighted that growing inflation caused an extra four million Nigerians to fall into poverty between January and May of this year.
With the recent withdrawal of fuel subsidies, it was anticipated that around 7.1 million poor Nigerians would become more impoverished if the Federal Government did not compensate or provide palliatives for them.
This has emphasised the need for immediate aid, particularly for the poor and vulnerable in the country.
cc: Punch Ng
