President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, says the living condition of poor people in Nigeria is getting better by the day.
Fasua made the remark during an interview with Channels Television while defending the Tinubu administration’s handling of poverty and the economy.
“The solution to poverty, really, that I was talking about is actually at the local government level, and that’s the reason why the president has advocated for local government autonomy and has also ensured that the states are a lot more powerful now in terms of the funding that they’re getting. And I mentioned to you the fact that, you know, those days when civil servants would be owed 18 months, 12 months, six months, it’s gone.
Pensioners are getting their money a lot, and I think that’s where it matters. And of course, opposition will think that it’s a government that actually pushes finances to the state and the local government, okay, that ensures that salaries are paid on time and the most vulnerable part of our population actually gets something. So I’m saying that, look, I can tell you, I can tell you that, honestly, for the very poor people in this country, the situation is getting better and perhaps better than it used to be, honestly.
Because if you are raising money to local government and to state government, that is where it’s at. But actually, we cannot go and give the local man…let me tell you, the lessons learned from the China Poverty Eradication Programme, what they did was to get documentation on every household. So if you really want to solve the poverty problem, you are talking about getting documentation on each household.
The federal government knows that you cannot do that; you can only do that through the local government, through the state government. And so these monies that have been pushed to them are what are going to win the election for us. I have no doubt that Bola Ahmed Tinubu is coming back in 2027 anyway.”