Director of Public Sector Initiative, Lagos Business School, Franklin Ngwu, has said, at least 140 million Nigerians will be described as poor in 2026 despite the reform by the President Bola Tinubu’s administration, particularly the issue of foreign exchange floating.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television’s ‘Prime Time’ on Monday, Ngwu said unemployment is going up.
“I think the way to look at it is maybe to look at key economic indicators before and after. But in terms of, did we need reform? Yes, we needed reforms.
“Another issue is the way the reforms were implemented, basically looking at fuel subsidy removal and then foreign exchange, I mean, other reforms follow that.
“So if we look at key economic indicators; unemployment, how are we doing at the moment? it’s rising. Poverty, is it going down or going up? It’s increasing. Debt- Is it going up or going down? It’s increasing.
“Inflation is being rebased, and we are told it’s coming down to about 15%. Revenue of the government, is it increasing? Yes, it’s increasing in terms of other economic indicators.
“So you have some of them going up and some of them coming down. But the main thing is how do ordinary Nigerians see, perceive and feel about these reforms? And the two key areas will be poverty and unemployment.
“And if you look at this, the UN report has said that about 30 million Nigerians will move into poverty this year. So it means that we are looking at almost 140 million Nigerians described as poor in terms of unemployment,” he said.
