African Democratic Congress (ADC) has expressed deep concern over recent World Bank reports indicating that 139 million Nigerians, about 60% of the country’s population, now live below the national poverty line.
The party said the figures were the inevitable outcome of economic policies it described as favouring “money over people and statistics over survival.”
The ADC said it has repeatedly warned that economic growth, increased revenue and rising foreign reserves celebrated by the Tinubu-led APC administration meant little if they failed to translate into improved living standards or protect citizens’ livelihoods.
The party accused the government of persisting with what it called “ruinous economic policies” rather than changing course, adding that officials had continue to frame difficult economic conditions as necessary sacrifices.
It said the evidence of 139 million Nigerians living in poverty, alongside 17 million people it said were at risk of starvation, represented President Bola Tinubu’s scorecard three years into his administration.
On the basis of this record, the ADC said President Tinubu should be contemplating resignation rather than seeking re-election.
The party, in a statement posted on his X handle on Saturday by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, said Nigeria needed leadership that genuinely understood and prioritised the welfare of citizens, arguing that the true measure of any economic policy was whether it improved people’s lives rather than deepened hardship.
It criticised the administration for what it described as profligacy in governance alongside the distribution of palliatives to the public.
The ADC rejected what it called a cycle of temporary interventions and emergency responses that characterised the APC government’s social intervention programmes, insisting that poverty could not be solved through palliatives alone but through building an economy that enables Nigerians to produce more food, earn decent incomes and live with dignity.
Outlining its alternative approach, the party said an ADC government would pursue structural reforms to address the root causes of hunger and poverty, beginning with reducing energy costs and securing farming communities and agricultural corridors to enable farmers return safely to their land, cultivate throughout the farming season, and transport produce to markets without fear of insecurity.
The party also pledged to increase domestic food production by rehabilitating Nigeria’s 264 abandoned dams to expand year-round irrigation, improving access to quality seeds, fertilizers, and extension services, and investing in storage, preservation and agro-processing facilities to reduce post-harvest losses.
Additionally, the ADC said it would build an integrated national food economy through regional agricultural production belts, under which neighbouring states would coordinate production, processing, storage, transportation and market access based on their comparative advantages, with the aim of lowering transport costs, reducing waste and bringing down food prices while creating rural jobs.
The party further committed to investing in human capital development, saying an ADC government would prioritise nutrition, healthcare, quality basic education and skills development, arguing that no nation could build a prosperous economy while millions of its children remained hungry, out of school, or unable to read.
