‘Nigerians don’t hate Tinubu’ — Presidency rejects The Economist’s report

The Presidency has rejected claims attributed to The Economist about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s standing among Nigerians, accusing the publication of presenting a distorted assessment of the country’s political and economic situation.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare, described the publication’s assessment as “intellectual fraud” and defended the economic reforms implemented by the Tinubu administration since May 2023.

Dare stated this in a response titled, “Beyond the Economist Condescension: Nigeria’s Re-engineering Under Tinubu is Unstoppable.”

He argued that the publication’s assessment failed to adequately consider the economic conditions inherited by the Tinubu administration and the impact of its reforms.

“The Economist claims Nigerians dislike their President, but it’s a claim that smells of opposition and is riddled with inconsistencies,” Dare said.

The presidential aide accused some foreign publications of relying on what he described as “sensationalist half-truths” when reporting developments in Nigeria.

He rejected the suggestion that there was widespread rejection of Tinubu, describing such an assessment as an oversimplification of the country’s complex political and economic realities.

“It has become a tired, predictable ritual of external commentary, most notably from the comfortable, insulated drawing rooms of foreign publications, to look at the complex, dynamic, and pulsating canvas of the Federal Republic of Nigeria through a cracked, distorted lens,” he said.

Dare added that foreign commentators were too quick to portray Nigeria as being on the verge of collapse while overlooking what he described as changes taking place under the Tinubu administration.

He said the narrative that Nigerians “hate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu” amounted to a false representation of the President’s standing in the country.

“They love to peddle the lazy, hollow fiction that ‘Nigerians hate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,’ packaging localised administrative growing pains into neat, uniform narratives of national rejection,” Dare said.

“This is not merely analytical laziness; it is an intellectual fraud. It completely overlooks the monumental, Herculean task of national salvage undertaken by the Tinubu administration since May 2023.”

Presidency defends Tinubu’s reforms

Dare argued that Tinubu’s performance should be assessed against the economic conditions that existed when he assumed office.

According to him, the President inherited what he described as a “broken economic ecosystem” characterised by fiscal pressures, distortions in the foreign exchange market and the burden of fuel subsidies.

“To evaluate President Bola Tinubu’s stewardship fairly, one must first confront the catastrophic baseline from which this administration began exercising its mandate,” he said.

“President Tinubu did not inherit a functioning, well-oiled state; he inherited a broken economic ecosystem on the precipice of total sovereign bankruptcy.”

The Presidency criticised the former fuel subsidy regime, describing it as a major drain on government resources, and also pointed to multiple foreign exchange windows, high debt-service obligations and years of underinvestment in infrastructure and other national assets.

Dare argued that the scale of the challenges meant that the reforms could not be implemented without transitional difficulties.

“To suggest that these structural cancers could be excised overnight without transitional pain is economically illiterate,” he said.

He maintained that the Tinubu administration had instead chosen to address what it regarded as longstanding structural problems.

“Yet, rather than kicking the can down the road like his predecessors, President Tinubu summoned the political courage to confront these structural contradictions head-on,” Dare added.

The presidential aide listed the removal of fuel subsidy and the unification of the foreign exchange market among the administration’s major reforms.

He claimed that the policies had helped reduce financial leakages, improve fiscal sustainability and strengthen investor confidence.

“Far from presiding over stagnation, the Tinubu administration has systematically dismantled decades of economic distortion through a series of hard-core, visionary policies that have fundamentally altered Nigeria’s trajectory,” Dare said.

Presidency highlights NELFUND, minimum wage, CNG buses

The Presidency also highlighted the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), local government financial autonomy, the increase in the national minimum wage and the deployment of Compressed Natural Gas-powered buses as some of the administration’s interventions.

It said NELFUND had enabled hundreds of thousands of students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to pursue higher education without paying tuition upfront.

The Presidency also credited Tinubu’s administration with supporting local government autonomy and increasing the national minimum wage.

It said the deployment of CNG buses, alongside other interventions, was aimed at reducing transportation costs and cushioning the impact of economic pressures on Nigerians.

The administration also pointed to fertiliser distribution, agricultural loans and the deployment of tractors and other farming equipment as measures designed to increase food production and support rural economies.

On claims of widespread public hostility towards Tinubu, Dare argued that the administration’s policies had benefited different categories of Nigerians.

“The notion that millions of Nigerians harbour blind hatred for President Tinubu collapses when you meet everyday reality,” he said.

“Walk into the lecture halls of federal and state universities, and you will find students and relieved parents whose educational dreams have been rescued by NELFUND.”

The Presidency maintained that assessments of Tinubu’s administration should take into account both the economic difficulties faced by Nigerians and the government’s stated objectives and interventions since May 2023.

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