Nigeria has recently taken over the the sole lead for the most people living in extreme poverty in the whole world. Most Americans will never have to experience what it’s like to live in extreme poverty. Poverty itself is a harsh way to live however, extreme poverty is even worse. It is defined as not having access to day to day basic needs such as food, safe drinking water, clothing and shelter. Nigeria has about 87 MILLION people living in these conditions. That many people would fill up AT&T Stadium 870 times.
Although Nigeria does not have the easiest living conditions to begin with, the government leaders are not proving the economic efforts needed to help the lower class ( which is basically the entire country) get out of this mess. Most of Nigeria’s economy is based on there exports of crude oil. Over the past 16 years Nigeria has gotten over 300 billion dollars from oil exports but not even 10 percent of that 300 billion dollars has gone to anyone living in extreme poverty. Thats 87 million out of 200 million people who are fighting for there basic needs every single day who don’t even receive 30 billion out of 300 billion dollars. The wealthy Nigerians are money hungry and they live in comfort while close to half there country mates are deprived of basic human needs.
The government officials in Nigeria either need to make changes as soon as possible or there needs to be a complete overhaul of the government. They need leaders that care about the Nigerians and will use government money to invest into bringing the poverty rates way down. The first solution would be to put money into better education, which in turn give ways for more people to make money and serve people in the future. A second idea to end the extreme poverty is for the government to give small farmers loans so they can become bigger and eventually make more money.
It is extremely sad to think about the families that have to live in places like Nigeria. We are blessed to live in the place we do and we take for granted the little things like food and water that millions of Nigerians can’t even depend on having every day. The government in Nigeria really needs to step up and take control of this problem to get there people out of such a harmful lifestyle.