Lagos — National Coordinator, National Poverty Eradication Programme (NA-PEP), Dr Magnus Kpakol, has attributed Nigeria's poverty index to weak local economy, adding that the rate would reduce "when we have rule of law and good governance."

Kpakol also said 74 million Nigerians are poor as at December 2008, a reduction of one million from the 75 million in 2007. He said this in a paper titled, "NAPEP Programmes as Enabler for Rapid Economic Develop-ment in the South South Region," presented at the just-concluded South South Economic Summit in Calabar.

He said the population of the country's poor was 80 million in 1999. Kpakol, a Senior Special Assistant to the President on Poverty Alleviation, said poverty prevalence was more in the northern part of the country.

According to him, the poverty rate in North West geo-political zone was 72.2 per cent of its population, while in North East, it is 71.2 per cent of the population.

"The percentage is 67 of the population in North Central," adding that the South-east has the lowest poor population of 26.7 per cent, followed by South-south where the poor constitutes 35.1 per cent and South-west, with 43.1 per cent," he said.

He said other factors that would also elevate people from the poverty stratum include, "strong and high quality development growth and mass participation in economic development," and challenged local government councils to commit N1 million into micro lending in each community in their areas.

Kpakol said reduction of the size of poor population from 80 million in 1999 to 74 million in 2009 was due to various poverty alleviation programmes embarked upon by various governments. He charged states and local governments in the South South to evolve a common poverty reduction programme.