President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigerians have fared better under various poverty alleviation initiatives by his administration.

“Since our assumption of office in 2015, our administration has introduced several poverty reduction and youth empowerment programmes, which are making concrete improvements in the living standards of our people,” Mr Buhari said while speaking at national stakeholders’ summit on the 2023 Population and Housing Census.

The summit was held at the State House, on Thursday, according to a statement by his spokesperson Femi Adesina.

Notwithstanding the president’s claim, Nigerians have endured a harrowing economic crunch in the last seven years with the country twice falling into recession and being named the poverty capital of the world according to a report of the Brookings Institution.

A Bank Report projected that the number of poor Nigerians has increased by 14.7 per cent over the last four years and could hit 95.1 by year end.

Yet the Buhari regime maintains that it has lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty between 2019 and 2021.

Mr Buhari said the inability to conduct a national census for the past 16 years has created an “information vacuum as the data from the last census conducted in 2006 has been rendered out of date for planning purposes.”

He posited that “It has therefore become imperative for the nation to conduct another national census to produce a new set of demographic and socio-economic data that will provide the basis for national planning and sustainable development.”