Based from the annual Misery Index compiled by economist Steve Hanke of the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Nigerians landed the sixth spot on the world’s most miserable people.
In a country with more than 200 million population, the contributing factors for the misery index include unemployment, especially for rural areas, and inflation rate.
Hanke told Forbes, “The original Misery Index was just a simple sum of a nation’s annual inflation rate and its unemployment rate. The index has been modified several times, first by Robert Barro of Harvard and then by myself.”
“My modified Misery Index is the sum of the unemployment, inflation and bank lending rates, minus the percentage change in real GDP per capita. Higher readings on the first three elements are “bad’ and make people more miserable,” said Hanke.
Hanke’s report isn’t the only one that showed that Nigerians are in grave poverty, but also the ‘world’s poorest people by 2050’ according to Goalkeeper annual report sheet in 2018.
The country’s major sources of revenue fall under oil, which comprises 75 per cent of the total government revenue, followed by non-oil revenues coming from taxes.
Nigeria’s Multifaceted ProblemsThe revenue of the country from corporate taxes amounts to N464.4 billion naira or $1.43 billion in 2017.
With this fund, the government can already create more projects that will increase the employment rate in the country but multifaceted problems are encountered. Corruption is the major culprit followed by mismanagement of funds, poor leadership and embezzlement.
As a result, the government of Nigeria was unable to finance major projects to help strengthen the economy.
Meanwhile, the countries that topped the misery index include Venezuela, Argentina, Iran and two African countries, South Africa and Egypt. These countries also share the same root problem, high inflation rate, as the contributing factor to the misery index.
