Nigeria Drops 31 Places In World Happiness Ranking, Worst In 7 Years

Nigeria’s misery index has continued to worsen over the years as the United Nations has ranked Nigerians as some of the saddest people in the world, especially in the last seven years.

Nigeria

According to the United Nations World Happiness Report 2021 released at the weekend, Nigeria dropped 31 places to 116th position out of 149 countries in World Happiness Ranking, making it the worst in seven years.

Nigerians were sadder in 2020 than ever as the country’s happiness ranking steadily dropped.

This development is largely predicated on successive unfavourable economic indices, political instability and social tension.

The report, which came as the world marked the International Happiness Day yesterday, showed that Nigeria ranked 18th position in Africa.

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The annual report focuses on the effects of COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared.

It ranks nations based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy and the opinions of residents.

Surveys asked respondents to indicate on a 1-10 scale how much social support they felt they had if something went wrong, their freedom to make their own life choices, their sense of how corrupt their society was and how generous they were.

Further analysis also showed that Nigeria’s current ranking is the worst since the report started in 2013. The country ranked 82, 78, 103, 95, 91, 85 and 116 in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The ranking did not come as a surprise as Nigeria’s current realities such as high inflation, unemployment and fragile economic growth are making citizens more miserable.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the country’s inflation which measures the rate of increase of commodity prices, reached a 35-month high at 17.3 percent in February 2021, while unemployment is at a record high of 33.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020.

According to the UN report, Finland emerged the world’s happiest place, while Mauritius, standing at 50th position, is the happiest country in Africa. Libya is now the second happiest country in Africa, followed by Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast and Cameroon, in that order.

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