The United Nations Country Director in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, says more Nigerians are being born into poverty.
Kallon stated this in Abuja yesterday when he led a delegation of the UN on a courtesy visit to Nigerian Senate President Ahmad Lawan. He said Nigeria’s “alarming” population growth without a corresponding economic growth was one of the mega trends affecting development in the country. He said: “The UN is concerned about some mega trends that we feel is affecting Nigeria’s development.
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“One, is our concern about explosive population growth vis-a-vis the Gross Domestic Product growth rate. “As you’re aware, Your Excellency, the population is growing at the rate of about 2.6 percent, and the economy is growing sluggishly at about 2 or 2.1 percent.”
“The second mega trend is multi-dimensional poverty and increasing inequality, which is a major concern for us. “If you look at the population growth and the GDP growth rate, what it is telling us is that more Nigerians are being born into poverty, and the figures are alarming and is a serious concern. “The third mega trend is corruption and illicit financial flows, which your government is working very hard to combat.”
Kallon, however, said the UN invested about $750m on development assistance per annum in Nigeria.
“We’ve been investing from $945m in 2017 to $878m in 2018, and $714m in 2019, and on an annual basis. The UN and its partners are assisting around 5.5m people in north east Nigeria.
“The total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance this year has varied from 6.2 million to 7.9 million as we speak,” Kallon said.
Lawan sought the assistance of the United Nations on the repatriation of looted funds back to Nigeria. Lawan said anti-graft war continued to suffer setbacks due to the inability of the federal government to repatriate looted funds stashed in foreign countries. He said the looted assets, if repatriated, would help in addressing critical developmental and infrastructural deficits facing Nigeria.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
