From the article:
The global economy, in terms of GDP per capita, grew by 32 percent between 1990 and 2010. This growth has helped lift more than a billion people worldwide out of poverty, nearly cutting in half the 1990 global poverty rate.
However, using the same yardstick for measuring poverty across the developing world—and defining poverty as earning $1.25 or less per person per day (adjusted for price differences across the world)—the number of Nigerians in poverty between 1992 and 2010 increased to 70 percent of the population, an increase of 22 percent from the rate in 1992. Clearly, global growth was not good for Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens. The poor were not lifted by the rising tide; instead, they were left to sink.
As of 2010, 7 out of 10 Nigerians were considered poor. And according to a study from the Center for Global Development, most of the poor are from the north of the country, with more than two-thirds at risk of spending their lifetime in poverty. This is despite a rise in the country’s GDP per capita by about 19 percent and a decline in the level of inequality.
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The challenge for the next government, therefore, is to generate more growth while at the same time dealing with inequality and reducing poverty. The challenge for the next government, therefore, is to generate more growth while at the same time dealing with inequality and reducing poverty.
Whoever wins the election should take two steps: First, since Nigeria is an oil-rich country, it should attempt to implement a proposal developed by Todd Moss and his colleagues at the Center for Global Development—using oil revenues to make direct cash transfers to the poor, counting such transfers as income, and subjecting them to taxation, a policy that would enhance accountability and reduce official corruption. Although the current government is running a cash transfer program of 5,000 naira (approximately $14) per month per household, this won’t bring relief because fewer than 1 per cent of poor people are benefiting and the amount isn’t enough to boost the welfare of the poor in an economy currently experiencing inflation. Without an increase and an expansion of the number of beneficiaries it won’t do much to reduce poverty.