Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, has acknowledged that the administration’s economic reforms pushed more Nigerians into poverty, while insisting that the country has recorded significant progress since the reforms began.
Bwala made the remarks on Wednesday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, as reported by TheCable.
He said the increase in poverty was partly a consequence of the economic adjustments introduced by the Tinubu administration, arguing that major reforms typically come with short-term hardship.
“Please let it be clear even to the opposition, the reason why you have this number of poor people and some of these doomsday analytics that people are giving is because we undertook a reform,” Bwala said.
“There is no part of the world where you start a reform like that there will not be discomfort.”
Bwala acknowledged that more Nigerians had fallen into poverty since the reforms began but maintained that the situation had improved over time.
“More people went down to poverty, acknowledged, but since when the reform started to today, we have made marked progress which is what we have spent the last three years talking to Nigerians about,” he said.
He added that while a significant number of Nigerians remain poor, the government’s progress should not be overlooked.
“So, you cannot discount that even though there are quite a number of our population that are poor which we admit, but we have made progress so far.”
2027 presidential election
Speaking on the 2027 presidential election, Bwala predicted that Tinubu would perform better than he did in the 2023 election.
Tinubu defeated the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar, by 1.81 million votes in 2023 and won by a margin of 2.69 million votes over Labour Party candidate Peter Obi.
Bwala claimed that Tinubu’s expected victory in 2027 would be significantly wider.
He said, “the margin of gap that President Bola Tinubu will give each and everyone of these candidates will be so much that you won’t believe it.”
The comments come amid continued debate over the impact of the Federal Government’s economic reforms, particularly their effect on household incomes and living costs.
