Does Nigeria Have More Poor People Than China, Indonesia, and Vietnam Combined, as Claimed by Peter Obi?
There has been a claim attributed to the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, Mr. Peter Obi. The claim stemmed from a statement made by Obi during his speech at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, where he stressed that Nigeria has more poor people than China, Indonesia and Vietnam, combined. This was then published by an online news blog on April 25, 2025, with the caption “Nigeria 🇳🇬 has more poor people than China, Indonesia and Vietnam combined. ~ Peter Obi”
As of the time of filing this report, the post has garnered over 380,000 views, with over 10,000 retweets, quotes and likes. The claim attributed to Obi was met with mixed reactions on social media. In the comment section, @de_generalnoni wrote “Chai 🤦 what does he gain in speaking down on the country? He was Governor of a state and did he reduced poverty?? Even Vietnamese self go dey laugh!” while @boipriest1 said “The combined population of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam is roughly 1.77 billion and Nigeria population 237.5 million How come”.
VERIFICATION
To verify this claim, we looked at data and macroeconomic figures in Nigeria as well as the other countries mentioned by Peter Obi in his speech.
According to The World Bank, the international poverty line is established when the population of a country is living on less than 2.15 dollars per day, adjusted for purchasing power parity, commonly referred to as PPP, as of 2017. This line is often referred to as the ‘extreme poverty line’.
The 2024 global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) produced by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, OPHI revealed that Vietnam, China and Indonesia had a combined MPI of 0.038 while Nigeria had an MPI of 0.175. Though the survey years used for China and Indonesia are older than (2014 and 2017, respectively) that of Vietnam and Nigeria (2020 and 2021).
In 2024, World Population Review and Worldometer puts Nigeria’s population at 235,091,156 million and out of this, the World Bank estimates that the country has a poverty headcount ratio of 56 percent of its population. This implies that more than half of the country’s population is below the poverty line, which when calculated, amounts to about 131,650,047 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty.
Data Reportal revealed that Indonesia had a population of 278,700,000 million in 2024, from which Badan Pusat Statistik Indonesia, BPS, the country’s statistics body estimated a poverty headcount ratio of 8.57 percent, amounting to 23,879,590 million Indonesians living in extreme poverty, when calculated.
In the same vein, Data Reportal puts the population of Vietnam at 99,190,000 million in 2024. The Asian Development Bank revealed that the country had a poverty headcount ratio of 3.4 percent. While specific data for 2024 is not yet available, The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, MoLISA, announced that Vietnam’s multidimensional poverty rate fell below 1 percent in 2024. Using the 2023 metrics, approximately 3,373,460 million Vietnamese are living in extreme poverty.
Meanwhile, in February 2021, the Chinese government officially announced to have eliminated extreme poverty (below the 1.90 dollar/day) since 2020. President Xi Jinping of the Chinese Communist Party boasted that there is virtually no one living under the poverty line in Beijing. Therefore, the country has no poverty index. A World Bank report also buttressed that China had lifted over 800 million of its citizens from extreme poverty.
Given these indices, the calculation of people living in extreme poverty in China [0], with Indonesia [23,879,590] and then Vietnam [3,373,460]
Combined total for China + Indonesia + Vietnam:
= 0 + 23,879,590 + 3,373,460 = 27,253,050 Million
Comparison:
Nigeria: 131,650,047 million
It is important to note that different poverty lines (e.g. the national poverty lines) may yield different absolute counts. However, under the standard global benchmark, Nigeria’s extreme poor population substantially exceeds that of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam combined.
CONCLUSION
The claim by Peter Obi that Nigeria has more poor people than China, Indonesia and China, all combined together is TRUE, when measured against the international poverty line of 2.15 dollars per day, as shown in the calculated breakdown.
