As of today, the poverty index rate in Nigeria stands at 63 per cent!
This means that of Nigeria’s roughly 235 million people, 140 million live below the poverty line. These huge numbers reflect the poorest, with non-existent health facilities, poor standards of living, and a lack of basic education.
Available data also show that 35 percent of the poor population faces “severe food insecurity and living on less than $2.15 per day.” It added that “Around 65 percent of poor individuals (86 million people) reside in the northern regions, while 35 percent (47 million people) live in the southern regions.”
A caveat here: The statistics above are not mine; they were sourced from the World Bank’s 2026 Poverty and Inequality Platform.
I decided to establish this source early enough to save the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, a certain Dr. Taminu Yakubu, from embarking on another AI-generated rejoinder as he did earlier on May 5, 2026, with his: “When Ignorance Masquerades as Economic Critique: A Rejoinder to Suyi Ayodele,” while responding to the column titled: “Tinubu: Borrowing is leprosy,” published on this page on May 5, 2026.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its National Multidimensional Poverty Index Latest Report, listed 10 poorest states in Nigeria with Sokoto, the Seat of the Caliphate, carrying the trophy “with approximately 90.5% of its population living in multidimensional poverty.” The remaining nine states and their poverty level, the report says, include: Bayelsa (88.5%), Gombe (86.2%), Jigawa (84.3%), Plateau (84.0%), Yobe (83.5%), Kebbi (82.2%), Taraba (79.4%), Ebonyi (78.0%) and Zamfara (78.0%).
The West calls the poverty level in Nigeria Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Grammar! My Yoruba elders, long ago, called it by two names: Ìṣẹ́ and Òṣì. Wonderful economists, those great minds, who departed long ago! They made a distinction between the two phenomena.
Ìṣẹ́, those sages of old taught, may bring severe hardship, but it can be overcome through personal effort, the support of others, and, above all, a strong spirit of perseverance and determination in the face of obstacles. They expressed this profound wisdom poetically, reasoning, eons ago, thus:
“Ìṣẹ́ kìí ṣe ẹkù kí ẹkù má rìn nínú igbó” (hardship does not prevent a rat from moving within the forest); ”Ìṣẹ́ kìí ṣe ẹja kí ẹja má wé nínú ibú (hardship does not prevent a fish from swimming in the ocean); “Ìṣẹ́ kìí ṣe ẹyẹ kí ẹyẹ má fò lójú òrun (hardship does not prevent a bird from flying in the sky); “Tí igi ún lá bá ya dí’nà, aa bèrè ko já” (when a big tree falls and blocks the road, one should bend and crawl under).
For Òṣì, they made no mistake about it. The elders of that time said Òṣì is chronic poverty, an abject stagnation; a spell and an affliction that one’s enemies can cast on one to make the individual live in perpetual deprivation.
Overcoming Òṣì through Iṣẹ́ (hard work), which they submitted is the medicine for hardship, as the saying goes: (Iṣẹ́ nì òògùn ìṣẹ́), they agreed is not an easy task. This is because Òṣì is caused by the activities of the wicked people in the lands, who cast poverty spell on the people and render their efforts through commerce, useless.
In Yoruba metaphysics, Òṣì can only be overcome if Ajé, the deity of trade and commerce, profit and prosperity, is allowed to thrive. Unfortunately, what the enemy responsible for Òṣì attacks first is the people’s source of prosperity: small-scale enterprises, where the god of wealth, Ajé, plies her trade.
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A short legend has it that when Ajé established the first human market known as Èjìgbòmekùn at the cradle of humanity, Ile Ife, the enemy (Olubi Èdá – the wicked one), approached the beautiful trader as a friend.
Olubi Èdá started by telling Ajé what the people liked. He encouraged the trader to increase her line of wares and also directed customers to Ajé’s store to make purchases. As the business expanded and Ajé was about to thank her diviner, Èjì Òbàrà for the good profit, Olubi Èdá showed his true colour.
First, he asked Ajé to pay land charges. His argument was that some people owned the land on which Èjìgbòmekùn Market was established. Ajé complied. Next came the ìsákólè oba (the king’s tribute), Ajé’s argument that her Babalawo, Èjì Òbàrà, told her that Olófin, the king, would not demand for any tax, fell on Olubi Èdá’s deaf ears. The trader, again, paid.
Next came all manner of taxes and levies. Where Ajé was selling goats, Olubi Èdá asked for owó onísò (levy for tethering). For the chickens and pigeons, he also taxed the trader. Olubi Èdá collected levies on pepper, tomatoes and insisted that Ajé must pay a developmental levy to the palace.
When Ajé could no longer bear the brunt, she went to seek help from Èjì Òbàrà. Unfortunately for her, the Babalawo and his friend, Alágbédeòfógunótánláyé (Alágbéde-ò-fógun-ó-tán-láyé) – the blacksmith does not want the war to end – had travelled to a faraway land on divination mission. The only option left for Ajé was to increase the prices of her wares. That made her goods unaffordable!
Realising that Ajé had nowhere to run to for help, Olubi Èdá came with another project to help the trader. He introduced another wicked fellow, Atàmájûbárà (the one who sells what the people cannot afford) as one who could give soft loans and incentives to Ajé.
It turned out that whatever incentive the Olófin palace released for Ajé and her co-traders, Olubi Èdá and Atamajubara pocketed half of it. The half the traders got was also heavily taxed. The situation became so severe that Ajé and many of her peers closed shop. Òṣì then reigned supreme among the people. Many died, and many became incapacitated by diseases.
The situation was not reversed until Èjì Òbàrà and Alágbédeòfógunótánláyé returned after many months, to the palace of Olófin, where they met Ajé working as a palace maid. Alarmed at the condition of the deity of prosperity, the two Babalawos cast their divination.
They performed the sacrifice the Oracle prescribed and caused Esu to make Olubi Èdá and Atamajubara blind. Then, Èjì Òbàrà remembered the gift Olófin gave to him when he returned from his divination mission. The old diviner gave Ajé the four elégédé (pumpkin) and asked her to go back to Èjìgbòmekùn market to sell.
Ajé, while setting out for the market, decided to cut the pumpkins into smaller sizes for the people, she cut the first and discovered gold inside. The second one brought expensive coral beads (ìlèkè iyùn), and the other two, when cut, delivered many precious stones and other goodies.
Ajé, within weeks became rich. Prosperity returned to Èjìgbòmekùn market. And when asked the source of her new wealth, Ajé responded: eni ta elégédé l’ Èjìgbòmekùn ni koore de’le (he who sells pumpkins at Èjìgbòmekùn is the one who takes profit home after sales). Ajé survived because those exploiting her had been made blind.
If Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, were to be of Yoruba descent, his hood notwithstanding, I would have listed him among the esoteric men of the land. His projection about the poverty profiteers of Nigeria is akin to what Èjì Òbàrà and Alágbédeòfógunótánláyé did years ago when humans could trek from Isalu Aye to Isalu Orun (earth to heaven).
The fiery Catholic priest, while speaking during a tree-planting exercise organised by the Bakhita Initiative–JDPC (Justice Development and Peace Centre) Sokoto at St. Kelvin Catholic Church, Gidan Dare, took a swipe at the poverty alleviation programmes of the government.
Kukah said that rather than serving the purpose of improving the parlous conditions of the masses, the proceeds of the poverty alleviation programmes always ended up in the pockets of the rich and those in high places in Nigeria.
While not openly calling the people in power as poverty morbid profiteers, Bishop Kukah declared: “In Nigeria, anything that is put on the ground to help ordinary people becomes food for the big people.”
He linked the diversion of the proceeds of the programmes to other interventionist agendas of the government, particularly, the ones said to have been geared towards addressing climate change, adding that despite years of such interventions and huge sums of money budgeted, the northern part of Nigeria continued to face worsening environmental challenges.
He specifically cited the Great Green Wall initiative, which he lamented had failed to render any meaningful impact. The Bishop speaks:
“Then we were told that effort was being made to stop desertification. They talked about the Great Green Wall. But up till today, we have never seen the green neither do we see the wall. We didn’t even see a blue or black wall. All we know is that we don’t have the wall, but the money has gone to where most monies in Nigeria normally will go to.”
Give it to the Catholic Church; their priests are the finest you can find around here. Yeah, we have a couple of them wearing the Catholic hoods but would encourage political thugs and street urchins to block the convoy of a fellow Catholic and prevent him from moving freely across the cities and towns of Nigeria. It is not for fun the old mediaeval Latin says: cucullus no facit monachum (the hood does not make the monk). There are priests and there are priests, but Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah is in a class of his own!
Reading Kukah’s submission on the diversion of money meant for poverty alleviation in Nigeria, I cannot but agree with the clergy man that Nigerian leaders are unfeeling morbid profiteers! In the first instance, like the Olubi Èdá and Atamajubara of yore, the current locusts masquerading as leaders, weaponised poverty in the land. They deliberately made the people poor!
Having afflicted the people with chronic poverty (Òṣì), they turned around to introduce palliative measures. And just as the people were about to shout eureka, the money developed wings and flew into the pockets of those who initiated the programmes and their cronies, who keep the blood money in trust for them! Nigerians have tales of woes to tell about those phantom poverty alleviation programmes.
When the self-styled Military President, Ibrahim Babangida (IBB), held sway, his government, through his late wife, Maryam, introduced the Better Life for Rural Women, which was launched in 1987, with the aim of empowering rural women. Many cottage industries were said to have been established through the programmes.
However, the razzmatazz that heralded the ‘launch’ of the projects in the towns and villages where the glamorous First lady and her entourage visited, was far costlier than the cottage industries! Today, how many of those ‘cottage industries’ are standing and how many ‘millionaires’ did the programme, which the late Gani Fawehinmi described as ‘Bitter Life for Rural Women’, produced?
The same government established the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), designed to tackle mass unemployment through vocational skills development, agricultural training, and small-scale enterprises. A fickle of that programme can be seen in some cities in Nigeria. Its success and failures are largely dependent on the commitment of its drivers to morality.
Through Decree No.11 of 1997, the military government headed by the expired dictator, Sani Abacha, established the Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), to make loans available to members of the cooperative societies set up in the rural areas. The cooperative societies were to encourage members to go into farming and set up small-scale enterprises, cottage industries and other commercial ventures. Pray, what has happened to the scheme? Who were the beneficiaries of the billions of naira the scheme had given out as ’loans’?
What about the Olusegun Obasanjo’s National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) of 2001? Apart from the fact that the scheme introduced the use of tricycles known as Keke NAPEP for commercial purposes, what vestige of that programme is still available? Who has been held accountable for the money expended?
Let us move to the contemporary era. What has been the total budget of the 2016 N-Power Programme; a youth empowerment scheme launched in 2016 under the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP)? How many Nigerians of the captured age of 18-35 have the scheme provided with jobs or trained in different skills? How many farms do we have now as a result of N-Power? Who N-Power empowered?
Talk about the National Cash Transfer Programme of 2016, which the Mai Gaskiya, the late General Muhammadu Buhari-led administration said would provide ‘regular cash stipends to extremely poor and vulnerable households’ in the country? Who were the beneficiaries? How much was transferred? Which database was used in selecting the beneficiaries? What is the definition of ghost-beneficiaries?
What, again, do we make of the cash transfer twin brother, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), the micro-lending initiatives like TraderMoni, MarketMoni, and FarmerMoni? Who got what? Where are the records of the total money disbursed and the recovered from the “zero-interest or low-cost loans?
Beyond the photo ops of the then Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, moving from one hide skin (ponmo) seller to a fish monger in Wuse Market and other pre-selected trading points, what evidence do we have that the N10,000 token, shared a few weeks to the general elections, were not bribe money for buying votes but a ‘soft zero-interest loans’ advanced to petty traders?
Should we talk about the funny National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP)? Do we discuss the fact that when the epidemic, COVID-19, restricted everyone to the confines of their homes, the government then announced that it spent N523.3 million feeding the school children who were at home with their parents during the lockdown?
These are the phantom programmes Bishop Kukah referenced in his address last Friday. The bitter truth here is that nothing has changed. The President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led government has entered the ring, trying assiduously, to outdo his predecessors’ perfidy in wastage!
All the so-called five coordinated Social Protection and Human capital Development Programmes of the administration, namely: the $1.25 billion World Bank-backed initiative NG-CARES Additional Financing (NG-CARES AF), the $300 million SOLID Programme designed to improve the living conditions of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and their host communities; a $1.5 billion Package Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity (HOPE); the Renewed Hope Ward Development Programme and the $1 billion Household Prosperity and Empowerment Social Protection Programme (HOPE-SP), fall under the Bishop Kukah’s sakamaje (deceitful venture) projection.
The real hope for the people is the emergence of the humane Èjì Òbàrà and Alágbédeòfógunótánláyé, who will blind the eyes of the Olubi Èdá and Atàmájûbárà of this era. It is then that the masses can take their elégédé to Èjìgbòmekùn market to sell and make profit.
While we await that day, Bishop Kukah remains eternally right in his submission that the poverty alleviation programmes of the government remain wealth elevation projects for the rulers!
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
