A pro-government group has welcomed the recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessment of Nigeria’s economy but pushed back against findings that poverty in the country has risen to 61 per cent, arguing that the increase was largely due the COVID-19 pandemic rather than a consequence of President Bola Tinubu’s reform agenda.
The Democratic Front (TDF), in a statement signed by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, said the IMF’s overall appraisal of the Tinubu administration’s economic direction was positive and derserved acknowledgement.
On the poverty figure, however, the group pointed to data it attributed to the World Bank showing that three-quarters of the rise in Nigeria’s poverty rate from 40% to 61% occurred between 2019 and 2023, before Tinubu took office in May 2023.
“The period between 2019 and 2023 represents the post- COVID-19 years when pandemic- induced, socio-economic decline deprived a vast percentage of the Nigerian population of stable income,” the statement read, adding that disruptions to the supply chain had devastated national cash flow during that period.
The group also cited the ongoing conflict in the Middle East as a complicating extermnal factor, arguing that the US-Israeli military campaign agaianst Iran and the resulting closure of the strait of Hormuz has upended global commodity markets and placed traditional strain on Nigeria’s economy.
It contended that the Tinubu administration had succeeded in stabilising fuel prices between N700 and N800 per litre and narrowing exchange rate disparities before those external shocks took hold.
“Nigeria is even lucky to have had an economic reset under the Tinubu administration before the military attack on Iran was launched; otherwise, the nation would have faced a more rigorous and challenging economic situation,” the statement said.
The TDF also cited a recent government approval of over N700 billion to 1,240 local contractors as evidence of the administration’s commitment to translating macro-level economic gains into tangible benefits for citizens, noting that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele has reaffirmed that commitment.
