Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, has dismissed claims by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar that the current administration is responsible for worsening hunger and hardship in Nigeria.
Speaking during an interview on TVC’s FCT Brief, Bwala accused opposition politicians of deliberately attempting to discredit the federal government and “create buzz” around their criticisms.
“The most fundamental thing is the issue he (Atiku) has raised. Does he have a valid point? He does not because the data suggests otherwise,” Bwala argued.
He stressed that rather than fueling hunger, the administration had recorded progress across critical areas of the economy.
“He said we are creating hunger. Is he blinded or doesn’t he hear the fact of the progress we’ve made? For example, we have increased foreign reserves. Our net export has increased. We have less dependency on imports. We have created a structure that has stabilised the economy.
“He won’t talk about that. He won’t talk about the Caesarean session we provided in all the hospitals in Nigeria — how the people don’t have to suffer. He doesn’t talk about that. He doesn’t talk about the NELFUND we have provided. He should be able to speak and say whether it’s working or not.”
Bwala also accused Atiku and other opposition figures of constantly shifting narratives after their earlier criticisms of Tinubu’s economic policies had been disproven.
“They started first by saying our economic model is wrong. Now, after two years, we’ve been able to prove them otherwise. They are dog whistling for civil unrest,” he said.
According to him, hunger has always been a recurring problem in Nigeria, irrespective of the government in power.
“This rhetoric of Nigerians are hungry; we have to be able to grow out of it. Nigerians were hungry in 1960, hungry in 1980, hungry in 1990, hungry in 1999. It was between 1999 to 2003 that somebody sang ‘Nigeria Jaga Jaga’. You mean he sang in abstract?”
He maintained that no period in Nigeria’s history has been without hardship, insisting that the Tinubu administration should be judged by tangible progress rather than recurring rhetoric.
“There has never been a time in which there is no one problem or the other as far as the Nigerian people is concerned. But judge the metrics.
“Judge us not by the rhetoric of Nigerians are hungry. Judge us by the dynamics of what we’re putting in place and whether it’s working.”
