dollars), but because most of that wealth has been concentrated with the top 1%, the country has gone from the 33rd richest in the 1970s to the 26th poorest by 2002. In fact, since 1982, Nigeria has collected oil export revenues in excess of $700 billion (as of 2010, in constant 2000 U.S. Today, Nigeria has the tenth largest proven oil reserves in the world, is the tenth largest oil producer, and is the eighth largest oil exporter yet nearly two-thirds of Nigerians live on less than $1.25 a day, 70% live below the national poverty line, and 83% live on less than $2 a day (each of those measurements place Nigeria in the bottom ten out of countries for which data is available). In 1956, Shell British Petroleum (now Royal Dutch Shell) discovered oil in what was then the British colony of Nigeria, and by 1958 commercial production had begun.
