The World Bank has raised Concerns that over 104 million Nigerians now live below the poverty line since the economic reforms of President Bola Tinubu.
This was contained in the World Bank Nigeria Development Update, NDP, report released in Abuja today. The Update indicated that Nigeria was not yet out of the woods but on the path to full recovery. This was as a result of the various policies being implemented by both fiscal and monetary policies. The World Bank called on the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL to make public its statement of accounts and transparently disclose its revenue inflows.
In his remarks, Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, said that between N300 billion and N400 billion was expended on fuel subsidy monthly. He added that the expectation was that the NNPCL should have been paying such amount to the Federation Account. He said such had not been the case.
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The World Bank report specially noted that petrol subsidy removal and foreign exchange rates unification created intense cost of living pressures. This, it said, pushed more Nigerians into poverty. The world financial institution, however, praised the Federal Government for what it considered “bold reforms”. It said they were necessary to rescue Nigeria from fiscal cliff, describing the current pains as temporary.
