The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has said latest report showing that Nigeria’s poverty rate has risen to 63% is as a result of President Bola Tinubu’s ill-defined economic policies.
ADC, in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, attributed it to the sudden removal of petrol subsidy by President Tinubu three years ago.
“Yet, this report only confirms what millions of Nigerians already know from their daily experience: the cost of living is rising rapidly, purchasing power is collapsing, and families across the country are being pushed deeper into hardship,” the party stated.
ADC noted that the report, which was presented at a policy dialogue in Abuja on Thursday, showed that poverty in Nigeria rose sharply from about 50 percent before the subsidy removal and to 63 percent afterward, and blamed it on higher fuel and transport costs.
“This verdict reflects the real consequences of the APC government’s hasty removal of fuel subsidy without giving full consideration to how such a serious decision would impact on the livelihoods of ordinary citizens,” the statement added.
The party stated that President Tinubu’s government had repeatedly justified the removal of subsidy on the need to divert resources to areas of critical needs, such as health and education, but noted that three years after the removal, none of these sectors has been funded any better, and citizens have not seen the benefits of subsidy removal.
“Independent surveys already show that 93 percent of Nigerians believe that under President Tinubu, the country is heading in the wrong direction, even as 88 percent describe the national economy as bad, while another 74 percent say their personal living conditions are poor.
“These are not abstract statistics, they are the voices of a population under intense economic pressure,” ADC said.
The party stated that there is increasing evidence of widespread deprivation, adding that majority of Nigerians report going without basic necessities such as food, clean water, medical care, cooking fuel, and even cash income at different times during the past year.
“For millions of households, economic hardship is no longer a temporary difficulty, it has become daily reality.
“This is what happens when government is more concerned with external validation than the well-being of its own people,” ADC added.
According to the party, the standard measure of any economic policy is whether it has made life better for the majority of citizens and protected the most vulnerable, which it said, the APC government has failed to provide.
