Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether she has made an estimate of the number of people in Nigeria who live in poverty.

Nigeria has the second highest number of extreme poor people in the world. In 2018/19, approximately 83 million people in Nigeria (around 40 per cent) lived below the national poverty line (https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/03/21/afw-deep-structural-reforms-guided-by-evidence-are-urgently-needed-to-lift-millions-of-nigerians-out-of-poverty). The World Bank estimates that the Covid-19 crisis caused five million more Nigerians to fall below the poverty line (https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2022/03/21/afw-nigeria-poverty-assessment-2022-a-better-future-for-all-nigerians).