Six people fall into extreme poverty every minute in Nigeria

Today, Nigeria ranks 157 out of 189 countries in the UN Human Development Index, which measures indicators such as health and inequality. Life expectancy is still only 54 years, although that’s an improvement from 46 years in 1999.

“I eat anything I see,” says Abdul Edosa, 30, as he sits under the bridge in the sprawling Nigerian commercial metropolis of Lagos, where he sleeps. “I beg money from people — anything they give me, I eat.”

Edosa’s is a familiar voice in the country with the world’s largest number of extremely poor, which the United Nations defines as living on less than $1.90 a day. The estimated figure now is 87 million people, or almost half the population of Africa’s biggest oil producer, and unless something dramatic happens, it’s going to get much bigger.

While poverty in India is declining, the number of destitute in Nigeria is believed to be growing by six people every minute, according to a recent paper from The Brookings Institution. The UN expects its population to double to 410 million by 2050, potentially swelling the ranks of the poor.

Edosa usually passes his nights with a handful of men and women on makeshift wooden beds under the bridge in Ikeja, the capital of Lagos state. Police trying to chase them away are a constant menace. A high-school dropout who did a stint as a television-repair apprentice, he now heads off each morning to look for odd jobs at building sites or hits the streets to beg.

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He won’t be casting a ballot in the elections scheduled for Saturday, when President Muhammadu Buhari hopes to win re-election against multi-millionaire Atiku Abubakar, and never registered to vote.

“I never see food chop na to go vote for person I go do,” he says in pidgin English, meaning, “I haven’t seen food to eat, is voting going to be my priority?”