Torn between Two Pandemics: Poverty Pandemic and Coronavirus Pandemic in Nigeria

The wave of coronavirus pandemic that hit the world coincides with Nigeria’s struggles with her newly attained position as the poverty capital of the world. This paper argues that prevalent poverty is a pandemic that the world has learnt to live with, and that Nigeria is struggling to overcome. The agony of poverty in the country coupled with the coronavirus pandemic subjects the country to a quandary of a dual-pandemic scourge. The paper relies on secondary data and adopts a descriptive and analytic approach. It concludes that multidimensional poverty in Nigeria is pervasive and has become deepened by the pandemic which led to a shutdown of economic activities in various countries of the world. The paper recommends that the government should commit to schemes, policies and projects that aim at reducing [multidimensional] poverty to avoid the rise of new poor as well as be proactive in treating poverty as a pandemic capable of plunging the country into an abyss of underdevelopment