Taiye Ajayi

Nearly 89 million Nigerians, roughly 40% of the country’s population, are living below the poverty line, according to Dr. Yemi Kale, former head of the National Bureau of Statistics. Speaking at The Platform Nigeria’s Independence Day event titled “Rebuilding Our Nation,” Kale, who now serves as Group Chief Economist at Afreximbank, painted a stark picture of the nation’s economic reality. Nigeria now has the second-highest number of poor people in the world, trailing only India. “Fewer than 20 of the world’s 195 countries have total populations larger than Nigeria’s poor,” Kale said, highlighting the scale of the crisis. The economist traced much of today’s hardship to years of postponed economic reforms. Critical policy changes now being implemented should have started over ten years ago when warning signs first appeared, he explained. “Acting earlier would have cushioned the impact on families and businesses,” Kale said. “Instead, flawed monetary and exchange rate policies damaged investor confidence and strangled investment, while fiscal and inflation problems kept piling up.” Despite the pain they’re causing, Kale insisted the current reforms can’t be avoided. “There’s no credible alternative,” he stated. But he stressed that how reforms are carried out matters just as much as the reforms themselves. They must be consistent, properly timed, and executed with compassion. “The real challenge is making reform as painless and humane as possible,” he said. “Too often in Nigeria, this gets overlooked or mishandled, creating hardship that could have been prevented.” Kale called on Nigerian authorities to maintain momentum on reforms while urgently strengthening social safety nets for citizens bearing the brunt of economic change. “The job isn’t to dodge reforms, it’s to sustain them while building protections that make the transformation economically smart and socially fair,” he concluded.