By Achile Danjuma
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has sharply criticized the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu, asserting that a new report indicating a surge in the national poverty rate to 63 percent represents the administration’s true performance metric.
In a statement released on Friday, and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the opposition party attributed the sharp rise in poverty directly to the President’s “ill-defined neoliberal economic policies,” specifically citing the removal of the petrol subsidy three years ago.
The party described the new data, presented at a policy dialogue in Abuja on Thursday, as a “damning verdict” on the Tinubu administration. According to the ADC, poverty in Nigeria has climbed from approximately 50 percent before the subsidy removal to 63 percent afterward.
“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 read.
The ADC highlighted that the macroeconomic shock from the subsidy removal has triggered cascading costs, driving up the prices of food, transportation, and other essentials. The party argued that while the government justified the policy on the premise of rechanneling funds to health and education, those sectors have not seen improved funding, and citizens have felt no tangible benefits.
Citing independent surveys, the ADC noted a widespread public discontent, with 93 percent of Nigerians believing the country is heading in the wrong direction, 88 percent describing the economy as bad, and 74 percent rating their personal living conditions as poor.
“A large 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,” the statement continued. “For millions of households, economic hardship is no longer a temporary difficulty, it has become daily reality.”
The African Democratic Congress concluded that by the standard measure of whether economic policy improves the lives of citizens and protects the vulnerable, “the APC government has failed.”