Reno Omokri claims ₦3,000 daily can sustain average Nigerian

Reno Omokri, Nigeria’s Ambassador-designate to Mexico, has claimed that the average Nigerian can survive on ₦3,000 daily. Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Omokri argued that poverty metrics must be interpreted within local economic contexts rather than through uniform global benchmarks.

Omokri stated he verified current prices for staples such as rice, yam, maize, and fruits through a market survey conducted alongside a journalist without security. He noted that while ₦3,000 might sustain a person in Nigeria, the same amount would constitute extreme poverty in the United States.

He further challenged international poverty indicators used by multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which often define poverty as living on less than $2 per day. Omokri asserted that these global standards fail to account for the specific market dynamics and cost-of-living realities of individual developing nations.