The Sokoto State Government has responded to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) analysis that rated the state as having the highest poverty level, saying the bureau’s methodology is insufficient.
The State Commissioner for Budget and Economic Development, Dr. Abubakar Muhammad Zayyanu, further stated that the state has taken the right decisions toward addressing poverty.
Zayyanu made this statement while fielding questions from journalists at a one-day workshop organized in collaboration with UNICEF, EU, and other development partners in Sokoto.
It may be recalled that the NBS recently ranked Sokoto State as having the highest multidimensional poverty rate.
The commissioner explained the approach, saying the NBS survey was conducted in 2022.
“I raised this issue in Lagos and queried the NBS for conducting that particular survey,” he said.
He noted that the methodology used was insufficient to make general findings on the poverty level in Sokoto State.
According to him, from 2022 to date, things have changed over time, which is why the state government decided, in conjunction with a company called Red Wire, to conduct a new survey to understand the dimensions of poverty in Sokoto State and see if there have been any changes.
“As I am talking to you, we have conducted that survey with the approval of the state governor, because he was worried about the NBS survey conducted in 2022. So, we tried to see what happened between then and now,” Zayyanu said.
“We are using 2022 as a benchmark, and now that we have conducted the survey and obtained the data, we are analyzing it to see if there is any significant change,” he added.
Zayyanu further stated that based on the preliminary analysis, the state government has started recording some positive results on the issue.
He maintained that the government would inform the public about its final findings.
He recalled attending a National Economic Council meeting in Abuja last month, presided over by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, where a World Bank development program was introduced.
Under the new project, Nigeria aims to start looking at development from the ward level in 886 wards across the country.
The federal government will try to identify the potential, population, and economic activities in each ward.
He assured that the state governor, Ahmed Aliyu, is also thinking along the same lines, adopting a bottom-up approach.
“Already, we have started gathering information from the ward level and feeding our state with that information so that we can see exactly how to address the issue of poverty,” Zayyanu concluded.
