Bwala admits Tinubu economic reforms increased poverty

The Special Adviser to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, has acknowledged that the administration’s economic reforms increased poverty but insisted that the government has made significant progress since introducing the measures.

Mr Bwala spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday while defending the reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration since it assumed office in May 2023.

The reforms include removing the petrol subsidy and unifying the foreign exchange market.

The measures triggered a sharp rise in the cost of living, with households and businesses facing higher transportation, logistics and production costs.

Mr Bwala acknowledged that the immediate impact of the reforms was painful and that more Nigerians fell into poverty during the process. He, however, argued that the hardship was an unavoidable consequence of economic restructuring.

“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 that we undertook a reform.

“There is no part of the world where, if you start a reform like that, there will not be discomfort. More people went down to poverty, acknowledged, but since the reform started to today, we have made marked progress, which is what we have spent the last three years talking to Nigerians about.

“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,” he said.

Mr Bwala’s comments come days after Mr Tinubu, in his Independence Day address, said the reforms had helped improve economic stability, citing lower inflation, rebuilt foreign reserves and a more stable foreign exchange market. The president said the government had moved from the reform phase to a focus on prosperity and reducing the cost of living.

2027 elections

Mr Bwala also said he was confident Mr Tinubu would perform better in the 2027 presidential election than he did in 2023.

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Mr Tinubu won the 2023 election with 8,794,726 votes, defeating Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party by 1.81 million votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party by 2.69 million votes.

Mr Bwala predicted that the president would widen his margin over his opponents in the next election.

“Let me tell you and let me say it categorically, and I will be happy to come back. The margin of gap that President Bola Tinubu will give every one of these candidates will be so much that you won’t believe it,” he said.

He attributed his confidence partly to the growing support for Mr Tinubu among governors elected on opposition party platforms.

Several governors have defected from opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress since the 2023 election. Mr Bwala said he expected more governors to support Mr Tinubu in 2027 than did so during the last presidential election.