Nigerians better off today than in 1960, says Tinubu’s economic adviser
By Jeffrey Agbo
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, has argued that despite widespread hardship, Nigerians today are better off than they were at independence in 1960.
Appearing on Channels Television on Friday, Fasua said it was inaccurate to directly compare present-day economic challenges with the realities of Nigeria’s early post-independence years.
He explained that most citizens in 1960 lived in rural areas with limited infrastructure, only experiencing urban poverty when they migrated to major cities.
“For those who try to compare Nigeria to 1960, in many ways we are living a better life now than used to be the case. In 1960, just after independence, we had a whole lot of people, of course, living in villages and so on.
“It was when we took over government as nationals ourselves that we started moving from villages to Lagos, to Ibadan, to Kaduna, to Enugu and all of that, and then that created a kind of urban poverty, because people found themselves in those cities and they were out of sorts as to what to do,” he said.
Fasua insisted that the Tinubu administration is focused on long-term reforms and infrastructure development rather than short-lived cash handouts.
“The current administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is saying that, look, we are not going to really be sharing money, we want to do something that takes us on a different trajectory, that paints a new picture, that prepares even our children and unborn children for a better life than what we have had,” he added.
At independence, Nigeria’s population stood at around 45 million, with agriculture dominating the economy and access to electricity, education, healthcare, and potable water largely confined to cities. Today, with a population exceeding 230 million, there has been expansion in infrastructure, education, and health services, though poverty and unemployment remain pressing issues.
The presidential aide dismissed the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Report—which estimated that 133 million Nigerians lived in poverty—as outdated and overstated, arguing that recent infrastructure investments have already improved living standards.
“If we redid the multidimensional poverty today, perhaps 10 to 20 million people have been taken out of poverty due to these investments,” he said.
Fasua further noted that inflation, which had peaked at 34 percent before dropping to 24 percent, was expected to keep falling. Citing the World Poverty Clock, he said reforms had lifted five to six million people out of poverty.
He urged Nigerians to look beyond present difficulties and appreciate the progress being made.
“Because if we are saying that you want to have a better country, it had better be good and better for the majority of the people. But if you’re saying you yourself, you think that you are poorer today than you were a few years ago, and then that means that nothing is being achieved, you are wrong, you know,” Fasua said.
