The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has criticised the economic policies of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, asserting that a new World Bank report confirms that the government’s actions have “ruined the lives and livelihoods of the majority of Nigerians.”
The ADC’s rebuke centres on the World Bank’s October 2025 report, which indicates that 139 million Nigerians are now living below the poverty line, a significant increase from 81 million in 2019.
This figure now represents 61% of the population, according to the party.
In a press statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC demanded that the government “Accept World Bank Verdict” and cease “peddling creative statistics.”
Abdullahi argued that the World Bank’s data “exposes the wide gap between the government’s rhetoric of economic progress and the lived reality of Nigerians.”
“While the administration celebrates increased revenue and meeting revenue targets, more citizens are slipping into abject poverty at a rate never seen before in Nigeria,” he said.
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He contended that the numbers prove that “under the APC and Tinubu’s government, more Nigerians have fallen into poverty than at any other time in our history.”
Abdullahi highlighted the shift from four out of ten Nigerians being poor in 2019 to “at least, six out of ten” today.
Abdullahi specifically challenged Tinubu’s recent Independence Day address where he declared the worst is over, claiming the statistics he presented were a calculated whitewash to serve the government’s narrative of progress.
He painted a grim picture of suffering, noting that the reality behind the shiny statistics includes historic human suffering— families skipping meals, children dropping out of school, and households selling assets just to buy food and basic drugs to survive.
Abdullahi said in an analysis of the World Bank data, nearly 30 million Nigerians have joined the “ranks of the ultra-poor” under the APC, described as those who cannot afford enough calories to survive even if they spend all their earnings on food.
He highlighted several worsening economic indicators.
Abdullahi noted that food inflation had escalated sharply, with the price of a bag of rice reportedly increasing fivefold in just four years.
As a result, poor families now spend an estimated 70 per cent of their income on food.
Abdullahi further revealed that the coverage of social safety nets had dropped significantly, from 20 per cent in 2019 to just 6 per cent in 2025.
In addition, he pointed out that government support for the poorest citizens was almost non-existent, accounting for only 0.14 per cent of GDP—far below the global average of 1.5 per cent.
Abdullahi said that Nigerians are “worse off” under the current government, contradicting the President’s claims that “the worst is over.”
He urged the administration to accept the unbiased verdict from its partner, the World Bank, and try to make amends before it is too late, rather than defending what it calls its propaganda.
