Reno Omokri: “World Bank DID NOT Say Nigeria is Extremely Poor”

Posted on Monday, April 7th, 2014 at 10:52 AM

Reno Omokri, Special Assistant to the President on New Media

Ever since Jim Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank, announced that most of the world’s extremely poor populations live in five countries including Nigeria, there have been numerous debates about this issue.

Here is Jim Yong Kim’s original statement:

“The fact is that two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor are concentrated in just five countries: India, China, Nigeria, Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo. If you add another five countries, Indonesia, Pakistan, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya, the total grows to 80 per cent of the extreme poor.”

In response, Nigeria’s finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, argued that the number of poor people in a country irrespective of the country’s level of development was the parameter used to rate Nigeria among nations with high poverty level (if you missed this story, click here).

Now, Reno Omokri, Special Assistant to President Jonathan on New Media, has also joined the debate, stating that Jim Yong Kim’s statement has been misinterpreted.

“Contrary to what some media report, The World Bank DID NOT list Nigeria as Extremely Poor but said most Extremely Poor people live in China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria.

This does not mean that those nations are extremely poor. What this means is that since these nations have the largest populations in the world it therefore follows that they would have the largest population of extremely poor people.

For instance, India and China were listed before Nigeria. Does that mean that India and China are extremely poor nations? For the avoidance of doubt, China has the second largest economy in the world, while India is the world’s fourth largest economy,” he said.