Chuks Okocha in Abuja
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) yesterday expressed its deep concern over the recent report by the World Bank indicating that 139 million Nigerians now live below the national poverty line.
The report, the party said, was consistent with a similar report by the World Food Program (WFP), which found that 17 million Nigerians were living with acute hunger, the country’s worst food security crisis in nearly a decade.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the opposition party said these reports were stark evidence that the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu’s administration failed.
ADC argued that Tinubu’s economic policies were likely to deliver even more catastrophic consequences if he continued in office beyond 2027, with a reported 79 percent, or nearly 200 million, of the population nearing poverty.
The party then called on President Tinubu to abandon his neoliberal economic policies that ruined the lives of almost the entire country, or quit, as Nigerians cannot continue on this ruinous path.
Abdullahi said the party was seriously disturbed by recent World Bank reports indicating that 139 million Nigerians, or about 60 percent of the population, now live below the national poverty line.
He said: “This is hardly surprising as this catastrophic situation is the inevitable consequence of economic policies that have favored 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 changin”course, the government has stubbornly stuck with its ruinous economic policies and even continues to market recklessness as courage and wickedness as ‘necessary pains,” A’C explained.
However, the party spokesman said that three years down the line, the chickens have come home to roost.
”The evidence of 13″million people living in poverty and 17 million at the risk of starvation is President Tinubu’s scorecard. Tinubu’s absence from 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 understands how the people feel and genuinely cares 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 out palliatives to the people.
”This is why the AD”rejects the cycle of temporary interventions and emergency responses that have come to define the APC’s economic policAPC’sn 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,” he stressed.
He stated that an ADC government would pursue structural reforms that address the causes of Hunger.
“First, we will reduce energy costs 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 prioritize the rehabilitation of Nigeria’s 264 abandoned irrigation systems and bring them back into 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, neighboring 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. At the same time, millions of its children are hungry, out of school, or cannot read simple texts,” he stated.
Abdul”hi explained that the choice before Nigeria is no longer between competing econHungerheories.
”Hunger is the most”Hungermeasure 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,” Abdullahi said.
