"70% Of Nigerians Are Very Poor" - CBN Governor

About 70 per cent of Nigerians are currently living below poverty line, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Sanusi Lamido Sanusi said yesterday.

Current figures from the National Population Commission (NPC) put Nigeria’s population at about 150 million, and 70 per cent of this figure is 105 million.

The poverty ration was previously put at 54 per cent.

Speaking at the 5th Annual Micro finance Conference and Entrepreneurship Awards in Abuja, Sanusi said the scenario is unacceptable because it poses challenges to economic growth and development.

He said: “The number of people living below poverty line has increased to about 70 per cent. The scenario is unacceptable to CBN because the trickle down effect is low and it may take longer time than anticipated.

“There is little reason to believe that this wider diversion can be narrowed without much intensive effort.”

Majority of the poor people reside in rural areas and cut across youth, women and elderly people. It is estimated that 12 million out of the 150 million Nigerians are unemployed, youth and women form the chunk of this figures and majority of them lack access to credit facility.

“You would all appreciate that lack of access to financial services cause serious challenges to national economic growth and development,” Sanusi said.

He said the greatest challenge is to address the constraints that exclude people from full participation in financial sector. “Together we can make a financial sector that improve peoples’ lives,” the CBN governor said.

The financially excluded people in Nigeria are 46.3 per cent of the population and there is low level of bank penetration in the country.

The 24 commercial banks have 5789 branches as at September 2010, which when added to 815 MFBs, amounted to 6605 branches.

The challenge of financial exclusion in Nigeria implies that the target people are sparsely located with poor infrastructure. They lack awareness, have low income, are socially excluded and are distant from bank branches.

They are faced with cumbersome documentation procedure at banks, unsuitable products, high transaction cost and difficulty in proven identity.

“Empowering these segments of population is a sine Canon to enhancing economic growth and development. CBN has taken steps to enhance financial inclusiveness,” Sanusi said.

He said there is increasing need to devise more appropriate mechanism to deliver services to the disadvantaged and low income earners, who are made up of farmers, women, unemployed school by leavers, social excluded people and the aged population.

According to statistic, 49.9 percent of youth within the age of 15 and 24 years residing in the urban areas have no job while 39.6 percent of their counterparts in rural areas are also not employed.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put the number of unemployed women in the urban areas at 22 per cent and those in the rural areas at 24 per cent.