By Grorge Mgeleke
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is deeply concerned by recent reports by the World Bank indicating that 139 million Nigerians now live below the national poverty line. This report, the party says, is consistent with a similar report by the World Food Programme (WFP) that 17 million Nigerians are now living with acute hunger, with the worst food security crisis the country has experienced in nearly a decade.

In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the opposition party says these reports are stark evidence that the Tinubu administration’s economic policies have failed and are likely to deliver even more catastrophic consequences if President Tinubu continues in office beyond 2027 with reported 79% or nearly 200 million of the population nearing poverty.

The party then called on President Tinubu to abandon his neoliberal economic policies that has ruined the lives of almost the entire country or simply quit as Nigerians cannot continue to continue on this ruinous path.

Full statement:

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is seriously disturbed by the recent reports by the World Bank indicating that 139 million Nigerians or about 60% of the entire population now live below the national poverty line.

This is hardly surprising as this catastrophic situation is the inevitable consequence of economic policies that have favoured money over people and statistics over survival.

The ADC has repeatedly warned that the economic growth, increased revenue, and rising foreign reserves that the Tinubu-led APC government continues to celebrate are meaningless if they do not translate into better lives for the people or protect their livelihoods.

Instead of changing course, the government has stubbornly stuck with its ruinous economic policies and even continues to market recklessness as courage and wickedness as “necessary pains.”

However, three years down the line, it is now clear that the chicken has come home to roost. The evidence of 139 million people living in poverty and 17 million at the risk of starvation is President Tinubu’s scorecard. On account of this catastrophic failure alone, President Tinubu should be contemplating resigning from office rather than seeking re-election.

What Nigeria desperately needs is a President and a government that truly understand how the people feel and genuinely care about them. A government that understands that the true measure of any economic policy is whether it improves the lives of the people, not compounds their misery. A President whose government is not openly feasting while asking the people to continue fasting. A government that does not wallow in profligacy while handing the people palliatives.

This is why the ADC rejects the cycle of temporary interventions and emergency responses that has come to define the APC’s economic policies in the name of social intervention programmes. Poverty cannot be defeated through palliatives. It can only be defeated by building an economy that enables Nigerians to produce more food, earn decent incomes, and live with dignity.

An ADC government will therefore pursue structural reforms that address the root causes of hunger.

First, we will reduce energy cost and make food production safe again. We will secure farming communities and agricultural corridors so that farmers can return to their land without fear, cultivate throughout the farming season and transport their produce safely and affordably to markets. No nation can achieve food security while insecurity keeps farmers away from their farms.

Second, we will increase domestic food production. We will prioritise the rehabilitation of Nigeria’s 264 abandoned dams and bring them back to productive use, to expand year-round irrigation across farming communities. We will improve access to quality seeds, fertilisers and extension services, while investing in storage, preservation and agro-processing facilities that reduce post-harvest losses and increase the amount of food reaching Nigerian markets.

Third, we will build an integrated national food economy. Through regional agricultural production belts, neighbouring states will coordinate production, processing, storage, transportation and market access according to their comparative advantages. By lowering transport costs, reducing waste and strengthening agricultural value chains, we will bring down food prices while creating productive jobs across the rural economy.

Fourth, we will invest in the Nigerian people. Hunger cannot be separated from poverty, education or healthcare. That is why an ADC government will prioritise nutrition, primary healthcare, quality basic education and skills development, because no nation can build a prosperous economy while millions of its children are hungry, out of school or cannot read simple texts.

The choice before Nigeria is no longer between competing economic theories. It is between an economy that produces impressive government statistics and one that produces better lives for its people. Hunger is the most honest measure of economic performance because it cannot be manipulated. Until fewer Nigerians go to bed hungry, until poverty begins to fall instead of rise, and until every Nigerian family can once again afford three decent meals a day, every claim of economic success will remain unrecognisable to the people whose lives those policies are supposed to improve.