The average amount of money earned by an individual in Nigeria, otherwise known as the per capital income has remained subdued in the last 40 years, Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank country representative for Nigeria said at the 27th Nigerian Economic Summit.
Ordinarily, the per capital income is a function of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). When the GDP is divided by the population of a country, gives the per capital income.
The situation, analysts say is dire, because per capita income helps determine the average per-person income to evaluate the standard of living for a population.
What it means is that the GDP of Nigeria is stunted, as such living standard will be low or misery index will be high.
Data from the World bank suggests that Nigeria’s per capita income is yet to gain steady momentum as seen between 1999 and 2008.
Analysts at Afrinvest said, “we noted a devastating setback from 2015 when poor handling of economic policies exacerbated the negative impact of crude oil price decline on the broader economy”.
Since 2015, a large proportion of the populace have grappled with poor living standard, below the poverty line consumption benchmark of $1.90 daily, due to absence of supportive monetary and fiscal catalyst as well as poor infrastructural developments.
For context, NBS data showed that 40.1 per cent of Nigerians lived below the poverty line in 2019 while another 13.1 per cent were vulnerable due to low consumption level ranging from $1.90 to $3.20 a person per day.
“We estimated this percentage would have increased by a minimum of 1.0ppt, given the 1.9 per cent GDP contraction recorded in 2020. As worrying as it may seem, there are no signs of respite in the mid to long term given the continued oil dependence, spiraling inflation rate and limited job creation amidst a steady population growth (c.2.7 per cent per annum ( p.a)).
