Poverty proving to be bigger threat to Nigerians than COVID-19

Nigeria’s COVID-19 curve is currently flattening rapidly, but the share of households whose safety nets are being threatened by economic shocks continues to ascend.

Statistics from the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on 30th of August showed that the number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases was 138 persons, the lowest daily report recorded since April 27th.

Nonetheless, the hardship being faced by Nigerians as a result of COVID-19 continues to exacerbate.

Increases in the prices of major food items consumed and farming/business inputs continues to be the most widely experienced shocks in the country, according to third round of the Nigeria COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

On its own, the increased prices of major food items have affected about 90 percent of households while increases in prices of farming/ business inputs affected 64 percent of households.

Interestingly, the Nigerian COVID-19 curve started to flatten from the end of July as daily confirmed cases started dropping, according to an analysis carried out using data from the NCDC.

The same can however not be said about the number of job losses, the percentage of households reducing their consumption as well as the constraints on the ability of households to meet their basic needs.

NBS report on the third round of the Nigeria COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey reveals a 27 percent increase in the number of households that have had to reduce their consumption as this rate moved to 69 percent by the end of July from 54 percent at the end of May.

Also, the percentage of households relying solely on their savings experienced a 6.8 percent increase to 31 percent, from 29 percent between mid-march to April and May.

“The projected rebound of the Nigerian economy by 2023 which contracted by 6.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020 will not necessarily reflect on different units of the economy”, said Boboye Olaolu, Sub-saharan African economist at CSL Stockbrokers. “As long as total population growth is higher than GDP growth, the economic recovery will not translate to an increase in living standards as wealth is not adequately transferred”, he said.