During an appearance on NTA, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 2020, aligning with President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 pledge.
Ahmed emphasized the government’s focus on poverty eradication, stating,
“President Muhammadu Buhari has directed that we must pull 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and that is our major focus. Based on the president’s directives, we want to move fast to make the kind of change the president wanted in the country.
“In 2020, we want to move very fast because we realized that going at the steady rate we are doing is not going to make the kind of change that the president has directed must happen.
“So, we have to make sure that we are creating more jobs and reducing unemployment, and pulling as many Nigerians as possible out of poverty. And that is the reason why when we did the finance bill, you will find that the bill was largely targeted at making businesses easy for the small and very small businesses. This is because we believe that is where the economy needs to really grow and stabilize from.” she said
According to the World Poverty clock, 91,885,874 people in Nigeria currently live in extreme poverty (less than $1.9 or N693.5 per day). Last June, Nigeria was named the poverty capital of the world, with statistics showing that 87 million people live in poverty.