* A long and Healthy Life :

Life expectancy remains for the health dimension of HDI. This however encapsulates several variables and is itself determined by various factors, hence its comprehensiveness. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn infant would be expected to live if health and living conditions at the time of birth remained the same throughout life. It reflects the health of a people, the quality of care they receive when ill as well as social, economic and environmental conditions which
mitigates or predisposes to morbidity and mortality. Life expectancy has been on the increase since 2009. However, NBS statistics in this respect differs.
Demographic and health factors such as the quality of preventive and curative healthcare facilities and access to these, impact on life expectancy directly; while social conditions equally impact length and quality of life through a less direct path.
The persistence of harmful social conditions such as war, conflict, crime, terrorist attacks and accidents in various forms will ultimately also diminish life expectancy at birth. Reductions in infant and under five mortality rates, increased access to nutritious food, and to primary health care, access to improved water sources and sanitation are all expected to be positively correlated with increased life expectancy at birth. Education is equally a key factor as it moderates behaviour and influences lifestyle habits alongside with preventive care.

* Life expectancy index:

Although the national data shows there are declines in life expectancy at birth between 2012 and 2013, the life expectancy index for Nigeria shows improvement from 0.415 in 2008 to 0.464 in 2013. The increase in life expectancy index over the two years occurred in all geopolitical zones. In both years (2008 & 2013), life expectancy index was highest in the South-West and lowest in the North-East. Incidentally, the North-East geopolitical zone is mostly troubled by security challenges and incidence of terrorist attacks in
Nigeria

* Knowledge, Learning and Literacy:

This is measured by the Educational index, which is computed using Mean Years of Schooling (MYS) i.e (The average value of the 6.3.3.4 syatem completed) and Expected Years of Schooling (EYS) reflect the knowledge, learning and literacy of a people. Across the geo-political zones, data for 2013 shows that mean years of schooling was highest in the South-South zone (10.664), and followed by the South West Zone. It is lowest in the North-West zone (3.8126)

The North-East and North-West zones had values lower than the national average figure, while the southern zones all had higher values than the national average figure.

The educational index across geopolitical zones presented in Figure 2.5 shows there were declines in the North-West, North-East, in the FCT and in the nation as a whole between 2010 and 2013. However, other zones in the south and the North-Central zone experienced increase in the educational index. Educational Index was highest In the South-South zone, followed by the South West and then the South East Zone. It was lowest in the North West Zone Zone, and closely followed by the North East.

* Income and a Decent Standard of Living:

Decency in living standards incorporates factors related to income, health, assets and inequality. The degree to which there is decency in living standard is the degree to which people have overcome poverty.
Poverty measures are therefore useful in explaining decent living standards. The Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) represents a holistic measure of people’s deprivations in health, education and standard of living using ten indicators across these dimensions. The MPI combines information on the proportion or incidence of people’s deprivations as well as the intensity of
these deprivations. The index can also be decomposed by population sub-groups. The Table shows a breakdown of MPI (Poverty Index) for the geopolitical zones and the FCT, with the South-West recording the least MPI value of (0.154) and the North East recording the highest MPI Value (0.329) in 2013. This indicates that the combined measure of the incidence and the intensity of poverty is lowest in the South-West zone and highest in the North East Zone Since the MPI represents a combined measure of deprivation across dimensions of education, health and living standards, a similar pattern showing better performance in the south as opposed to the northern
geopolitical zones is observed for MPI. The northern geopolitical zones have the highest MPI values.

* Gender Equality:

Inequality measures are also useful in assessing decency and living standards.
If growth is occurring in an economy, and such an economy still exhibits high inequality indices, then such growth is said to be non-inclusive. Non inclusive growth contradicts the principle of decent living standards and mitigates desirable development outcomes. The Gender Inequality Index (GII) is a measure of inequality between males and females in the population. It incorporates three dimensions namely: reproductive health,and labour market.

Indicators for these dimensions include maternal mortality rates (MMR), Adolescent Fertility Rates (AFR), share of parliament seats for males and females, and labour force participation rate. The higher the value of GII the wider the inequality gaps between males and females. The GII is highest in the North-West (0.774) and lowest in the South-East (0.397). All the southern
geopolitical zones had GII values lower than the national average (0.579), while the northern zones all had GII values higher than the national average figure. The implications are that the indicators for the GII dimensions (MMR, AFR, share of parliament seats, and labour force participation rates) perform better in the southern states than in the northern states.empowerment

* Women in gainful employment:

According to the latest nationally available data, In terms of geo-political zones, the share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector in the North-central zone in 2010 was 7.6%; North-east, 4%; and North-west, 4.2%. The shares for the other zones were: South-east, 7.4%; South-south, 7.7%; and South-west, 16%. The latter (South West) was the highest among the zones, while the NE and NW (4% & 4.2%) were the lowest. Also, the available data shows that the share of women wage employment in the urban areas increased from 3.1% in 2009 to 14.8% in 2010. For the rural areas, it was 5.8% in 2009 and 5.6% in 2010.

* Poverty Incidence (Headcount ratio):

According to the NBS (2013) about 112 million Nigerians live below the poverty line. Poverty incidence,measured by the headcount ratio, worsened in all the
geo-political zones and sectors (rural and urban) of the country in 2010 when compared to 2004. It has remained higher in rural areas and northern zones
than in urban areas and southern zones. It is striking to note that the headcount ratio almost doubled in the South-East zone (a zone which recorded the least incidence in 2004) and increased more in urban areas than in the rural areas of the SE. The trend in total population of the poor is shown in Figure 2.9. It reveals that more Nigerians were poor between 2004 and 2010.

However, recent computation by the World Bank, using GHS panel, indicates that poverty rates are significantly lower than estimates based on 2009/2010
HNLSS. It dropped from 35.2 per cent in 2009/2010 to 33.1 per cent in 2012/2013 (as opposed to 62.2% from the 2009/2010 HNLSS) (World Bank, 2014b). This implied that about 56 million Nigerians were poor compared to about 113 million in previous estimates.
Poverty incidence is seen to be lowest in the South West Zone (46.9%), followed by the South-South (51.6%), Incidence of poverty is highest in the North East (74.3%), closely followed by the North West (73.2%)

* Spending on Education, Health and Public Administration:

The underlying factors in the unequal distribution of wealth and development outcomes may be further explained by a comparison of the share of population spending on key sectors such as education and health. Spending connotes investment and investments are expected to yield returns. Figure 2.7 shows population shares as well as shares of expenditure on education, health and public administration, and attempts a comparison of these variables across the geo-political zones.

The pattern shows that the northern zones and the South-East record lower shares of spending than shares of national population. Wider disparities
in shares of the two variables are noticeable in the northern zones. South-West recorded a slightly higher spending (20.4%) than its share of population (19.8%), while the South-South zone has by far, a higher share of
spending (28.2%) than its share of population (14.9%)..
The expected returns on investment in education and health are improved knowledge, learning, literacy and better opportunities for advancement; increased life expectancy as well as wider socio economic benefits.

* Child Mortality in Nigeria:

The status of some health indicators has improved since the 1990s. For instance, Under-5 Mortality Rate dropped from 99 in 1990 to 89
in 2014; Infant Mortality rate dropped from 91 in 1990 to 58 in 2014; while maternal Mortality rate dropped from 1000 in 1990 to 243 in 2014. (FRN, 2015) This improved status is expected to have positive impact on the status of human security and human development.

infant mortality declined from 93 between 1999 and 2003 period to 69 between 2009 and 2013 period while correspondingly, under 5 mortality dropped from 185 to 128. As presented in Table 4.15 all the zones experienced reduction in infant mortality between 2008
and 2013. As at 2013, the North-West Geo-political zone recorded the highest infant mortality (89/1,000 live births) rate, followed by the South East (82/1,000 live births) while the lowest rates were recorded by the South-South (58/1,000) zone followed closely by the South West. (61/1,000)

Under 5 mortality rate is highest in the North West (185 per 1,000 children), followed by the North East (160/1,000). It is lowest in the South West (90/1,000 children) followed closely by the South South (91/1,000)

YonkijiSappo:
State breakdown nor dey ni?
lumping the states into the geopolitical zones, will not let us see the individual strides made by each state towards development.
A very bad or good performer in one region can bring averages down very quickly or boost averages unnecessarily.

Yorubanews:
Did anyone really expect SE to beat SW? All their noisemaking starts and ends online. SW will always be the Nigeria's golden egg. Why should Yotubas move to poverty ridden SE?

Even with their miracle centers, they're still behind the SW

Rayhutar:

Why is Nigeria too afraid to let them go, SW you are taking about have about 45% stake by Igbos, expecially in lagos and that is helping to push the statistics of SW up.

Rayhutar:

Why is Nigeria too afraid to let them go, SW you are taking about have about 45% stake by Igbos, expecially in lagos and that is helping to push the statistics of SW up.

OkutaNla:


Lmao! Gosh! You folks never disappoint when it comes to pulling spurious percentages out of your anuses . 45% ?? Come on, you can do better than that. Since it's a phantom figure, you might as well make it 95%.

Rayhutar:

Why is Nigeria too afraid to let them go, SW you are taking about have about 45% stake by Igbos, expecially in lagos and that is helping to push the statistics of SW up.

Yorubanews:


I blame Yorubas for keeping mute when Ibos began these small lies.

Tell them to replicate Lagos in Anambra. Tell them to force Yorubas to move their businesses to that erosive region.

MrsNgoziKalu:



Lol

Na today? since they migrated down to africa from israel, they have been helping people build their cities, but they have never had the time to build at least one in the place they are from. Lets be sincere with ourselves, which city in SE is in the league of Abj, Lag or PH?

Yorubanews:


Lol they're claiming that PH (igweocha) belongs to them. I pity SS people. By the time a group of 38million population is done grabbing lands from a population of 10million, dem go curse the day they joined Biafra.

MrsNgoziKalu:



hahahaha. Awon ole
I am posting from PH now. truth be told they are much in PH o. But most of them are into petty buisness like hawking boxers, okpa or Abasha. They will go to a city & hustle, but their children will come nairaland to boast how their parent owns the economy in the city.
Yorubas have properties in PH than igbo, but igbos are more than them (Yoruba)

Yorubanews:


Who is afraid to let Ibos go? We're holding on to the SS until oil dries up. Ibos are inconsequential.

Last I heard, it was 99% stakes. What's the pride in leaving all your assets in another man's land while your region looks like dump? When Nigeria breaks, they can take their assets to Iboland.

Lmao. Yes you're helping to push our crime rates up. Most of your criminals don port to the SW to make more money.

Why do Ibos always claim the hardwork of Yoruba man?

Rayhutar:

Lagos is no man's land

MrsNgoziKalu:



Lol

Na today? since they migrated down to africa from israel, they have been helping people build their cities, but they have never had the time to build at least one in the place they are from. Lets be sincere with ourselves, which city in SE is in the league of Abj, Lag or PH?

Yorubanews:


Lol when they fail at a rebuttal, they hang on to a delusion. This is why Yorubas will continue to be successful in politics. No man's first name is Yoruba.

Oya go and eat.

Rayhutar:

Abuja and Lagos is no man's land, developed by Nigeria, in terms of development you cant compare PH with Onitsha or Enugu

Yorubanews:


I blame Yorubas for keeping mute when Ibos began these small lies.

Tell them to replicate Lagos in Anambra. Tell them to force Yorubas to move their businesses to that erosive region.

Rayhutar:

Remember that Lagos is not only indigenous to Yorubas, Egun and Ijaws are also, Lagos was former Benin Empire territory, developed with Nigeria money from 1960 to 1991, Abuja is receiving the same development not from oil money, after Gwari people will be telling us how their handwork developed Abuja.

Rayhutar:

The British from 1851 and Nigeria from 1960-1991, build Lagos for all Nigerians, all Nigerians have a stake in Abuja and Lagos.