Nigeria overtakes India as the country with largest number of extreme poor people

According to Businessday, Nigeria has already overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor in early 2018, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo would soon take over the number 2 spot.


The number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty crossed the 83 million mark in 2018, surpassing India's number of extreme poor at 73 million. This is despite the fact that India has 1.324 billion people while Nigeria has a population of just about 200 million people. This means that one out of every two persons in Nigeria lives in extreme poverty.

Extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.


Already, Africans account for about two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor. If current trends persist, they will account for nine-tenths by 2030.

Fourteen out of 18 countries in the world—where the number of extreme poor is rising—are in Africa

These new data are available courtesy of the World Poverty Clock, a web tool produced by World Data Lab.

Source: BusinessDay, World Poverty Clock.