FROM 54% TO OVER 60%: HOW NIGERIA’S POVERTY CRISIS BECAME AN APC LEGACY
For 16 years, Nigerians were governed predominantly by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), from 1999 to 2015. Since 2015, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has controlled the Federal Government.
The political debate over Nigeria’s economic condition should therefore not be reduced to slogans. It should be tested against what happened to the living standards of ordinary Nigerians.
The available official statistics tell a story that deserves serious public scrutiny.
When the PDP came into power in 1999, Nigeria was emerging from years of military rule and severe economic difficulties. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recorded relative poverty at 65.6% in 1996. By 2004, during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, the figure had fallen to 54.4%.
That was not perfection. Nigerians still struggled with unemployment, inadequate infrastructure, corruption, insecurity and widespread poverty. But the numbers show that poverty incidence declined between the 1996 and 2004 surveys.
Then came another important data point.
The NBS's 2010 poverty profile reported 69.0% relative poverty, equivalent to about 112.5 million people under that particular methodology. The same NBS report warned that poverty had increased despite economic growth.
However, this is where political arguments must be intellectually honest: the 2010 survey straddled the transition from Yar’Adua to Jonathan, and different poverty methodologies subsequently produced different estimates. It would therefore be misleading to attribute the entire movement to one president.
The more comparable modern monetary-poverty measurement came with the 2018/19 Nigeria Living Standards Survey.
By then, Buhari's APC administration had been in power for more than three years. The NBS reported that 40.1% of Nigerians—more than 82.9 million people—were living below the national poverty line, excluding Borno because of security-related survey limitations.
At first glance, APC supporters may point to 40.1% and declare victory.
But that would leave out the most important part of the story: poverty is not measured only by a headline percentage.
The number of Nigerians, the purchasing power of households, inflation, food prices, employment opportunities and access to basic services all matter.
And Nigeria's situation subsequently became substantially more difficult.
The NBS's National Multidimensional Poverty Index found that 63% of Nigerians—about 133 million people—were multidimensionally poor in 2022. The NBS stressed that multidimensional poverty is different from monetary poverty: it captures deprivation in areas such as living standards, education, health, sanitation, food security and access to basic services.
That 63% figure should not be falsely labelled as a monetary poverty rate under Tinubu, nor should it be presented as a survey conducted entirely during his presidency. The underlying survey predates his inauguration.
But the story does not end there.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023. Since then, the removal of the petrol subsidy and major foreign-exchange reforms have fundamentally altered the cost structure of the Nigerian economy.
The World Bank now estimates that more than 60% of Nigerians were living below the national poverty line in 2025. It also estimates that 69.6% of Nigerians were below the $4.20-a-day lower-middle-income poverty line, while approximately 123 million Nigerians—50.8% of the population—were living below the $3-a-day international extreme-poverty line in 2025.
These figures explain why the poverty debate cannot be dismissed as opposition propaganda.
The APC inherited a difficult economy in 2015. It also inherited structural problems that had accumulated over decades. But after more than a decade of APC control at the federal level, Nigerians are entitled to ask a simple question:
Are ordinary Nigerians materially better off today than they were before the APC came to power?
For millions of households, the answer is increasingly difficult to defend.
Food prices have risen dramatically. Transport costs have increased. The naira has lost substantial purchasing power. Household budgets have been squeezed, while wages have struggled to keep pace with the cost of living.
The irony is striking.
The party that campaigned on the promise of “change” now presides over an economy in which the World Bank says poverty remains above 60% by the national poverty measure.
The APC cannot reasonably blame everything on the PDP forever.
After 11 years in federal power—from 2015 to 2026—the APC has had sufficient time to establish its own economic record.
This does not mean the PDP should be romanticised. It should not.
The PDP years had corruption scandals, policy failures, insecurity, unemployment and periods of serious economic mismanagement. The poverty figures themselves show that Nigeria remained deeply poor throughout the period.
But politics is ultimately about performance.
The relevant question is not whether PDP governments were perfect.
They were not.
The relevant question is whether the APC's promise of change has translated into improved living standards for the average Nigerian.
That is where the government must answer the people.
Because when a country has economic growth but households cannot afford food; when government revenues rise but citizens feel poorer; and when macroeconomic reforms produce improved fiscal indicators without a sufficiently rapid improvement in household welfare, the government cannot simply point to GDP statistics and declare success.
The World Bank itself says Nigeria's recent economic growth remains insufficient to generate enough productive jobs and materially reduce poverty. It also says household incomes have yet to fully recover.
Therefore, the central political indictment is not that “APC created poverty in Nigeria.”
That would be historically inaccurate.
The stronger and more defensible argument is this:
Nigeria has remained trapped in mass poverty for decades, but after more than a decade of APC rule, the party has yet to demonstrate that its economic model is delivering broad-based improvements in the living standards of ordinary Nigerians.
The PDP must answer for its years.
The APC must answer for its years.
And after 11 years in power, the APC can no longer campaign against the problems of yesterday as though it is still an opposition party.
The era of promises is over. Nigerians are judging the APC by the price of food, the value of their wages, the cost of transportation, the availability of jobs and what remains in their pockets at the end of the month.
That is the real poverty index.
And that is the question the APC must answer.
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