It’s well known that Nigeria’s richest and poorest people
are worlds apart
Off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, land is being reclaimed
from the sea to host Eko Atlantic, a futuristic new city for the mega-rich.
Touted as the ‘Hong Kong of Africa’, it will boast the continent’s largest
shopping mall and financial hub, a marina, private international schools and
hospitals, and 250,000 residents.
Ten kilometres away is the slum neighbourhood of Makoko,
also built on water and already home to 250,000 people. They live along
polluted waterways, in densely packed stilted houses, under constant threat of
demolition by government.
For the first time, the US think-tank Center for Global
Development (CGD) has published figures on the middle (median) incomes of
almost all countries. It turns out that the middle earner in Nigeria takes home
just US$1.80 each day — below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day.
The data also shows that in several countries with a similar GDP (gross
domestic product) per capita to Nigeria, the middle earner has a more
comfortable living: more than US$7 in Tonga and US$9 in Bolivia, for example.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria’s northern neighbour Niger — six times poorer as a
country per capita — the middle earner lives on US$1.90 per day.
It’s incredible that this data wasn’t published before. We
knew Nigeria had an inequality problem, but until now discussions have been
steered by per capita (mean) incomes — and these are heavily skewed by the
incomes of the mega-rich. But by looking at median income statistics we can see
just how poorly Nigeria’s economy is set up to serve most people, and how
rampant inequality there is compared to other countries.
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