UNDP vindicated Osun as least poverty-stricken, says government

The Osun State government said it had been vindicated by a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report which shows the state as having the lowest poverty level in Nigeria.

In a statement in Osogbo, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Adelani Baderinwa, who reacted to the latest rating, said: “We have done everything humanly possible to reduce poverty, create wealth and put smiles on the faces of our people, and we have been vindicated once again by an external assessor”

The Computation of Human Development Indices for the UNDP Nigeria Human Development Report (2016) which was released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently rated Osun the lowest state in the ‘Incidence of Poverty’ with 17.5 per cent.

According to the statement, the NBS had in 2013 rated Osun the second lowest in poverty index, one of the five states with lowest unemployment rate, and the second richest state in Nigeria by the United Nations’ Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index in 2017.

“The Incidence of Poverty which is the percentage of Nigerians who are poor is 53.7 percent and the disaggregation by state shows that it is more prevalent (89.9 percent) in Sokoto State, followed by Jigawa State with 86.1 per cent, Rivers and Ebonyi states share 58.9 per cent each, while the lowest state is Osun State with 17.5 per cent,” the NBS stated in the report.

Baderinwa described the UNDP and NBS reports as a compliment on Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s administration.

He maintained that the projects, programmes and policies put in place by Aregbesola have developed the economy of the state, improve the wellbeing of the people and guaranteed security of life and properties.