The World Bank may have knocked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as poverty deepens, rising to 140 million poor in Nigeria.
The World Bank asserted that "poverty in Nigeria rose to 63 per cent in 2025 despite a slowdown in inflation, underscoring the limited impact of recent macroeconomic improvements on household welfare". The World Bank made a clear case of uneven distribution of the national wealth in Nigeria.
The Bank, in its report, Nigeria Development Update (April 2026) titled: “Nigeria’s Tomorrow Must Start Today: The Case for Early Childhood Development,” released in Abuja, affirmed that the share of Nigerians living below the poverty line increased from 56 per cent in 2023 to 61 per cent in 2024, before rising further to 63 per cent in 2025, equivalent to about 140 million people.
The Bank remarked that poverty increases as inflation eases, indicating a disconnect between moderating prices and real income growth. Though, there are insinuations that the inflation figure is manipulated to assume the government is performing.
According to the World Bank, “Household incomes have not grown fast enough to offset still-elevated inflation, and poverty has yet to begin declining.”
The Bank maintained that earlier inflation spikes had already weakened real incomes before the recent decline in prices.
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