Nigeria poverty level drops: Report

Poverty rate in Nigeria has dropped from 35.2 percent to 33.1 percent in 2013, a latest World Bank report said Tuesday.

The decrease represents a dramatic drop from an estimated poverty rate of 62.2 percent recorded between 2009 and 2010 based on the Harmonised Nigeria Living Standard Statistics (HNLSS), John Litwack, the bank's acting country manager said, Xinhua reported.

According to Litwack, the poverty rates per capital from the General Household Survey (GHS) panel between 2012 and 2013 is 33.1 percent with 44.9 percent in the rural areas and 12.6 percent in the urban areas.

The World Bank official told reporters that there appeared to be higher poverty rate in the northern part than in the southern parts of the country, noting that the number of poor Nigerians has remained 58 million, more than half of which live in the northeast or northwest of the country.