The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, has disclosed that 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor.

In its latest National Multidimensional Poverty Index Report launched on Thursday, the NBS said that 63 percent of Nigerians are poor due to a lack of access to health, education, and living standards, alongside unemployment and shocks.

The MPI offers a multivariate form of poverty assessment, identifying deprivations across health, education, living standards, work, and shocks.

According to the Statistician-General at the NBS, Semiu Adeniran, it is the first time they will conduct a standard multidimensional poverty survey in Nigeria.

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“The survey was implemented in 2021 to 2022 and it is the largest survey with a sample size of over 56,610 people in 109 senatorial districts in the 36 stated of Nigeria,” he said.

The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale, who revealed the findings from the report said 63 percent of Nigerians are multidimensionally poor meaning that they are being derived in more than one dimension of the four measured.

He said, “Multidimensional poverty is more pronounced in rural areas where 72 percent of people are poor compared to urban areas where we have 42 percent.

“Gender disparity continues to affect the population with one in seven poor people living in a household in which a man has completed high school but the woman has not.”