Former presidential aide and ambassador-designate to Mexico, Reno Omokri, has asserted that the average Nigerian can comfortably survive on ₦3,000 a day, dismissing international poverty metrics as detached from local realities.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Sunday, Omokri argued that Nigeria`s cost of living cannot be evaluated using Western standards, particularly those of the United States. He revealed that his conclusion followed a firsthand, un-ticketed market survey across the country.

"I travelled with a journalist, without security, and stopped along the way to price goods. I checked the prices of yam, rice, maize, and fruits," Omokri stated. "In Nigeria, people can live on that amount [₦3,000] in a day."

Contrasting the economic environments, he noted that while surviving on the equivalent of ₦3,000 daily in the U.S. would equate to extreme poverty, context matters when defining wealth and lack in Nigeria. He further challenged the World Bank’s global poverty threshold, arguing that the institution applies a sweeping global benchmark that fails to reflect the domestic purchasing power of the Naira.