Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to Mexico, Reno Omokri asserted that the average Nigerian can survive on N3,000 daily, arguing that poverty metrics must be interpreted within local economic contexts.
Speaking on Sunday Politics, Omokri addressed the rising cost of living and international poverty baselines. Omokri stated that he personally conducted market surveys accompanied by a journalist to verify current prices for basic food staples, including yam, rice, maize, and fruits.
“I went there with one journalist, no security, and I stopped along the way, and I priced goods. I priced yam, I priced rice, I priced maize, I priced fruits. In Nigeria, people can live on that amount in a day,” Omokri said.
He contrasted domestic purchasing power with international cost-of-living metrics, highlighting that equivalent sums would represent extreme poverty in foreign economies.
“In the United States, if you try to live on that amount in a day, it is poverty. So, you have to context, again, context matters,” he added.
Omokri further challenged global poverty indicators established by multilateral financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which define poverty as living on less than $2 per day. He noted that international financial bodies rely on uniform global benchmarks that fail to account for local market dynamics across developing nations.
