Port Harcourt — Newly appointed United Nations under-Secretary, Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas yesterday lamented the high level of poverty in Nigeria, even as he attributed it to corruption.

Chambas who was the guess lecturer at the second edition of Professor Claude Ake Memorial Lecture, said the poverty in the country was worrisome, in a nation ranked the seventh oil producing State in the world.

Chambas in his lecture entitled "Combating the Resource Curse: Strategies for Economic Transformation in a Natural Resource-Rich Economy" said over 70 percent of the country's population live below poverty level.

The former president of ECOWAS and currently the Secretary-General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP) linked the poverty level in the Nigeria as well as the dearth in public infrastructure such as roads to corruption, which has eaten deep into the nation's fabric.

Chambas described late Professor Claude Ake as one of the greatest sons of African, saying legacies should not be allowed to die.

Earlier, chairman of Nigerian Governors' Forum (NGF) and governor of Rivers State,Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi expressed regrets that the Centre for Advanced Social Sciences (CASS), Port Harcourt established by the late Ake had not been revived more than two years after he gave directive to that effect.