By Geoff Iyatse
16 December 2022 | 4:30 am

The World Bank says it will take northern states 40 years to catch up with their southern counterparts considering the “current growth rates”.

sharp gap between per capita levels of northern and southern states, saying, “the poverty rate is almost 20 times higher in Sokoto — the state with the highest poverty rate, at 87.7 per cent— compared to Lagos—the state with the lowest poverty rate, at 4.5 per cent” while quoting 2018/2019 data.

It notes that it will take the country about a decade to get back to per capita income level recorded pre-2014, that is, before the oil price shock that triggered the 2016 recession.

According to the document, a comprehensive report on the country’s socioeconomic indicators and detailed explanations of the trends says the modest economic gains recorded during the structural reforms of 2000 to 2010 were wiped in the following decade when the reforms were discontinued.

“Despite its vast natural resources and a young, entrepreneurial population, development in Nigeria has stagnated over the last decade and the country is failing to keep up with the GDP growth of its peers. Declining private investment and demographic pressure push young Nigerians to pursue opportunities overseas.

“Nigeria was a rising growth star globally in the 2000s due to the implementation of several structural reforms in the context of rising oil prices. Yet, this fast growth was not accompanied by robust job creation.

“Between 2001 and 2010, Nigeria ranked among the top 15 fastest growing economies in the world, with an average annual growth rate of 8.2. However, the hard-won income gains from the 2000s evaporated between 2011 and 2021, due to the lack of deeper structural reforms, global shocks, conflicting macroeconomic policies, and increased insecurity percent,” it argues.


Identifying job creation as a potent option for accelerating poverty reduction and closing spatial inequality, the report urges the government to unlock the opportunities in private investment to create quality and sustainable jobs.

“To catalyse private investment and offer more opportunities to the youth, the priority is to restore and preserve macroeconomic stability, which has weakened in recent years due to conflicting monetary policy goals, over-reliance on oil exports, limited fiscal space and restrictive trade policies,” it adds even as it admits that oil remains the country’s economic “backbone.”

The CEM outlines policy options focused on enhancing macroeconomic stability and an overall business-enabling environment. Some of the recommendations are improving the exchange rate system, removing trade barriers, increasing non-oil revenues and tackling inflation, which it said has pushed an estimated eight million Nigerians into poverty between 2020 and 2021.

It also calls for strengthening the rule of law and social cohesion as well as enhancing the country’s competitiveness by addressing key constraints to private investment such as poor power supply, protectionist trade regulations, poor access to finance, and low digitalisation.

“While there is no silver bullet to accelerate growth, Nigeria can become a rising growth star again if it implements a comprehensive set of bold reforms in a timely manner,” the report assures


https://guardian.ng/business-services/itll-take-north-40-years-to-catch-up-with-south-says-world-bank/

40 years abi 400 years?
After all the quota system they enjoy?
Aboki no too get brain Sha.

But how they managed to pursue Yoruba people from Kwara still beats my imagination

That can only be possible if and only if the South remains stagnant which can never happen, inorder wise, North can never catch up with the south

Lol.... Food don land for Biafra Southerners... �����

El-Rufai had said: “Nigeria consists of two countries; there is a backward, less educated & unhealthy northern Nigeria, and a developing, largely educated and healthy southern Nigeria.

We have to speak the truth to ourselves and ask why is it that northern Nigeria has development indicators similar to Afghanistan, a country still at war?.."
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thenationonlineng.net/nigeria-is-two-countries-in-one-backward-north-developing-south-says-el-rufai/amp/

Nothing new! The northern region has always been a backward area from antiquity. They would have been totally forgotten in civilization were it not for the endurance of the more civilised South.

TimT:
Lol.... Food don land for Biafra Southerners... �����

It will take the rest of the country over 4000 years to catch up with per capita income of Biafrans

I don't blame the northerners. It's their elite who weaponize poverty. They don't want them to go to schools or be educated. They want them to remain a political instrument to their benefits.

Cry very well, SE still remain the richest people in nigeria. You can hug transformer on that

TimT:
Lol.... Food don land for Biafra Southerners... �����

Ogbuefi2020:

It will take the rest of the country over 4000 years to catch up with per capita income of Biafrans

The same nomadic barbarians east of the Niger River

As North no gree support Obi, Ipob youths don dey para since