Nigerians worse off than in 2019 – survey

Most Nigerians are today worse off than they were in 2019 as they continue to bear the brunt of increasing economic hardship.

This is from a survey conducted by Africa Polling Institute (API) to measure citizens’ perception concerning the state of social cohesion in the country and how optimist they are about their future as Nigerians.

The survey themed “The Nigeria Social Cohesion 2021”, Nigeria Social Cohesion Index (NSCI) was computed as 44.2 percent. This is below 50 percent, an indication that Nigeria is not as socially cohesive as it ought to be.

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This means that most Nigerians are unwilling to cooperate with each other and the government towards the progress of Nigeria. The absence of social cohesion may threaten the peaceful co-existence of citizens.

Social cohesion is defined as the willingness of members of a society to cooperate with each other in order to survive and prosper.

This survey successfully measured social cohesion in Nigeria using 10 key indicators namely: identity, trust, social justice, participation and patriotism, natural resources, governance, gender equity, impunity, corruption, self-worth and future expectation.

NSCI is derived from the proportion of respondents that perceived ‘average’ and ‘high’ social cohesion in Nigeria averaged over the 10-indicators mentioned above.

All interviews were administered between April and May 2021, via face-to-face household survey, using the stratified random sampling technique. A total of 8,114 interview contacts were attempted with 5,363 interviews completed, representing a response rate of 66.09 percent.