ABUJA - Nigeria’s coronavirus outbreak may push 5 million people into poverty as it triggers the worst recession in the African powerhouse since the 1980s, the World Bank said on Thursday.
The twin shock of the pandemic and a global oil price crash has pummelled Nigeria, which has Africa’s largest economy mainly because it is the continent’s top crude producer.
The World Bank forecasts Nigeria’s economy will shrink 3.2-7.4% this year, depending on the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak. In a worst-case scenario, the recession could continue into 2021 when the economy could contract 2%, it said. The 5 million people facing poverty due to COVID-19 come on top of the 2 million the World Bank had previously projected would become impoverished, with the pandemic disproportionately affecting the poor, particularly women.
Poverty and unemployment have often fuelled violent insecurity in Nigeria, from militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta to the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast and banditry in the northwest. Thousands have been killed.
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