Six in Ten Live Below Poverty Line: Atiku Ally Slams Tinubu's 'Haphazard' Approach as a Step Backwards for the Nation

President Tinubu

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: The Senior Special Assistant to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Public Communication, Mr Phrank Shaibu on Friday said the World Bank Report on Nigeria’s worsening poverty rate is an indication of how low the country’s economy has sunk since President Bola Tinubu assumed office.

According to him, the World Bank has officially indicted the economic trajectory of the president, confirming that a staggering 60% of Nigerians are now living in poverty.

In a statement issued in Abuja, Shaibu described the surge from 40% as “regression on a monumental scale.”

Shaibu argued that the current economic hardship is no accident, but rather the “direct outcome of poorly conceived and harshly implemented policies.”

He cited the “abrupt removal of fuel subsidies” and the “chaotic devaluation of the naira,” asserting that these measures were “executed without adequate safeguards for the Nigerian people.”

According to the statement, the administration’s reliance on abstract macroeconomic indicators ignores the “far harsher reality” faced by the citizenry.

Shaibu noted that “food prices have spiralled out of control, inflation has wiped out incomes, small businesses are collapsing, and millions more Nigerians are being pushed into extreme poverty.” He described the government’s approach as “economic shock therapy imposed on a vulnerable population.”

“A government that presides over a situation where the majority of its people are poor, yet insists that progress is being made, has lost both moral authority and economic direction,” Shaibu stated.

He said the administration is “dangerously disconnected from the lived realities of its citizens.”

In contrast to the current “policy experiments,” the statement noted that Atiku Abubakar offers an alternative “rooted in experience, pragmatism, and compassion.”

Shaibu detailed a vision where “reform must be carefully sequenced, not recklessly imposed,” and where “social protection must be real, targeted, and transparent, not symbolic.”

He said the Waziri Adamawa’s proposed strategy focuses on stabilizing the economy through the coordination of fiscal and monetary policy while “rebuilding productivity through support for small businesses, agriculture, and industry.”