Presidency slams Economist’s Tinubu assessment, insists reforms “unstoppable”

The Presidency on Tuesday rejected claims by The Economist that Nigerians are increasingly disenchanted with President Bola Tinubu, describing the publication’s assessment as condescending, distorted and disconnected from the impact of the administration’s reforms, The Nation reports.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Dr Sunday Dare, said the narrative ignored what he called the administration’s difficult economic inheritance and structural changes undertaken since May 2023. In a write-up titled “Beyond the Economist Condescension: Nigeria’s Re-Engineering Under Tinubu is Unstoppable,” Dare accused foreign commentators of reducing Nigeria’s realities to sensationalist narratives, calling the claim that “Nigerians hate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu” an “intellectual fraud.”

He cited the removal of petrol subsidy, foreign exchange rationalisation, the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, local government financial autonomy, the new minimum wage and CNG bus deployment as evidence of efforts to cushion reform impacts while rebuilding the economy. While acknowledging Nigerians were experiencing hardship, Dare insisted it reflected “bitter medicine required to cure a chronic national ailment.”

He maintained the administration would not retreat from its economic programme, insisting Tinubu’s policies had placed Nigeria on an “irreversible path toward sustainable growth, fiscal independence, and enduring prosperity.”