Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, says Nigerians are better off today than they were at independence in 1960, despite present economic hardship.
Fasua, while speaking on Channels Television on Friday, argued that it was misleading to compare the country’s current realities with the early post-independence years.
According to him, in 1960, most citizens lived in rural areas with little access to infrastructure, and only encountered poverty after migrating into urban centres.
“For those who try to compare Nigeria to 1960, in many ways we are living a better life now than used to be the case,” he said.
“In 1960, just after independence, we had a whole lot of people, of course, living in villages and so on. It was when we took over government as nationals ourselves that we started moving from villages to Lagos, to Ibadan, to Kaduna, to Enugu and all of that, and then that created a kind of urban poverty.”
Fasua stressed that the Tinubu administration is focused on tackling both historical and current poverty through reforms and infrastructure rather than cash giveaways.
“The current administration is saying that, look, we are not going to really be sharing money, we want to do something that takes us on a different trajectory, that paints a new picture, that prepares even our children and unborn children for a better life than what we have had,” he said.
He also dismissed the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Report, which estimated that 133 million Nigerians were poor, describing it as outdated.
“If we redid the multidimensional poverty today, perhaps 10 to 20 million people have been taken out of poverty due to these investments,” Fasua claimed, pointing to ongoing road projects and other infrastructure as drivers of change.
Fasua added that inflation, which he said once peaked at 34 percent, had dropped to 24 percent and was expected to continue falling. He credited reforms with lifting between five and six million Nigerians out of poverty, citing figures from the World Poverty Clock.
Urging patience, he said, “If you’re saying you think that you are poorer today than you were a few years ago, and then that means that nothing is being achieved, you are wrong… progress takes time.”
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