The Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, has admitted that the government’s economic reforms have driven more Nigerians into poverty.
Bwala spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday.
The reforms, which included the removal of petrol subsidy and the unification of the foreign exchange market, triggered a sharp rise in the cost of living, with households and businesses facing higher transportation, logistics and production costs.
Bwala, however, said the administration has made significant progress since introducing the economic measures.
Defending Tinubu’s policies, the presidential aide argued that reforms in every part of the world naturally bring discomfort.
He said, “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 because we undertook a reform.
“There is no part of the world where you start a reform like that there will not be discomfort. More people went down to poverty, acknowledged, but since when 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.”
On the 2027 presidential election, Bwala expressed confidence that President Tinubu will perform better than he did in 2023, when he defeated Atiku Abubakar by 1.81 million votes and Peter Obi by 2.69 million votes.
The presidential adviser predicted that Tinubu would widen his margin over his opponents in the next election.
