With Nigeria’s presidential elections looming, candidates looking for to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari have been making claims about key points.
We’ve got checked out statements by Bola Ahmed Tinubu from the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), in addition to by opposition politicians Atiku Abubakar from the Peoples Democratic Celebration’s (PDP) and the Labour Celebration’s Peter Obi.
Peter Obi: ‘Whereas the poverty fee in India is about 16%, that of Nigeria is about 63%… categorised as multi-dimensionally poor’
Mr Obi has taken knowledge from two totally different sources when making this declare.
The figure for India (16.4%) is taken from the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index, launched in 2022 with the backing of the UN and the Oxford Poverty and Human Improvement Initiative (OPHI).
It assesses poverty in additional than 100 growing international locations, taking a look at 10 indicators protecting well being, schooling and dwelling requirements.
Whereas the determine for India is appropriate, on this identical report the determine given for Nigeria is 46.4% – not the 63% talked about by Mr Obi.
That determine has come from a unique examine – a nationwide survey often known as the Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Survey (additionally launched final yr).
Regardless of the comparable identify, it is not equal to the world examine, and it might be deceptive to make use of data from the two research facet by facet, based on Prof Sabina Alkire, head of the Oxford Poverty and Human Improvement Initiative (OPHI).
A nationwide index is a country-specific poverty measure and usually is tailor-made to every nation’s personal state of affairs and for Nigeria, it has extra indicators not included in the world examine, provides Prof Alkire.
And we additionally have to be conscious that the knowledge from the world examine is from totally different years – the determine for Nigeria is from 2018 and that for India from 2019-21.
This raises additional questions on whether or not it is a legitimate comparability, since the Nigerian knowledge pre-dates the Covid pandemic.
World Financial institution researchers level out that assessing poverty tendencies in Nigeria has long been difficult due to changing methods of measurement.
Mr Obi has additionally claimed Nigeria had “overtaken India as residence to the greatest pool of absolute poor in the world”.
The World Poverty Clock, which tracks progress made by international locations in ending excessive poverty, first confirmed Nigeria forward of India by way of individuals dwelling in excessive poverty in 2018.
The latest estimates are that Nigeria has 71 million individuals in excessive poverty (dwelling on lower than $1.90 per day) in contrast with India’s 44 million.
Atiku Abubakar: ‘In simply 5 years between 2015 and 2020, the variety of absolutely employed individuals dropped by 54% – from 68 million to 31 million individuals’
Mr Atiku Abubakar of the opposition PDP, who was vice-president from 1999 to 2007, stated this in January.
He’s appropriate about the determine for these categorised as absolutely employed in 2020, based on official knowledge.
However his determine for 2015 additionally contains these outlined as underemployed – that’s working fewer hours than they want, or doing work not absolutely utilising their expertise.
In 2015, there have been 55 million individuals absolutely employed based on the authorities’s Unemployment/Underemployment Report, which might imply the appropriate determine for the fall in employment is 44%.
Bola Tinubu: ‘[Insecurity has] really lowered… we [had] flags of overseas jihadists in Nigeria, that’s no extra’
Insecurity has been a serious election concern, particularly the battle towards Islamist militant teams resembling Boko Haram.
In a current interview with the BBC, Mr Tinubu, of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), sought to defend the file of the present president, Muhammadu Buhari, who’s his get together chief.
He claimed overseas jihadists had been working in 4 states when Mr Buhari took over in 2015 and that this was not the case. “That’s lengthy gone,” he stated.
Boko Haram has certainly been weakened and has been pushed out of a lot of the territory it beforehand managed, however different teams have grown stronger throughout this era, amongst them the Islamic State West Africa Province (Iswap), which broke away from Boko Haram.
David Malet, from the American College in Washington DC, who has been researching overseas fighters since 2005, says it’s tough to say what number of there are in Nigeria, however suggests it’s nonetheless an issue.
“With Islamic State recruitment, there are actually extra at this time in neighbouring international locations in the area, so it’s probably there are extra in Nigeria too,” he advised the BBC.
The federal government can be experiencing different security-related challenges – amongst them banditry, kidnappings and conflicts involving pastoralists and farming communities, in addition to a separatist insurgency in the south-east.
“General, Nigeria remained one in all the most violent international locations in Africa final yr,” according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) .
Reporting by Peter Mwai, Chiagozie Nwonwu and Fauzziyah Tukur
