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The World Bank has said Nigeria will take over India as the world capital for deaths of children under the age of five by 2021.

The bank’s report was based on the fact that India, with a population of 1.3 billion recorded 989,000 under-five deaths in 2017, while Nigeria, with 196 million citizens, recorded 714,000 deaths in the same year.

In its bi-annual economic update on Nigeria, the World bank said Nigeria records the highest number of child malaria deaths anywhere in the world, adding that Nigeria had the highest number of out-of-school children anywhere in the world, and that 90 percent of these children are from northern Nigeria.

The bank said: “Nigeria’s weak revenue mobilization has major implications for its growth and development, including for improving its dire social service delivery outcomes.

“Poverty remains high in Nigeria and access to basic social services is not universal. In 2016, the World Bank estimated poverty at 38.8 percent of the population using the national poverty line.

“By international poverty line of PPP-corrected $1.90 per capita per day, an estimated 49.2 percent of the population lived below poverty in 2017.

“With nine million children out of school, Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children of primary school age in the world: North takes over 90 percent of this figure.”

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