TheCable

Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank’s country director for Nigeria, says the country’s per capita income could fall to its lowest since 1980.

Speaking on Monday at the 26th summit of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Chauduri (pictured) said Nigeria was at a “critical juncture”, adding that the country was yet to recover from the oil price shock of 2014-2016 before the coronavirus outbreak.

Per capita income (PCI) measures the average income earned per person in a given country in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the country’s total income by its total population.

In 1980, according to World Bank data, Nigeria’ PCI was $847.40 and $2,229.9 in 2019.

Chauduri noted that the collapse in crude oil prices, had a devastating impact on Nigeria’s revenue, balance of payments and remittances from Nigerians in diaspora.

“Crisis like this is often what it takes to bring a nation together to have that consensus within the political, business, government, military, civil society to say and we have to do something that departs from business as usual,” he said.

“And for Nigeria, this is a critical juncture. With the contraction in GDP that could happen this year, Nigeria’s per capital income could be around what it was in 1980 – four decades ago.”

The country director also said that between 2015-2019, 15 million Nigerian youth became of working age but only about 4 million found the kinds of jobs and opportunities they wished.