The Presidency has rejected a report by The Economist claiming that Nigerians dislike President Bola Tinubu, describing the assertion as “intellectual fraud.”
In a statement signed by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare, the Presidency said the publication’s position “smells of opposition” and is riddled with inconsistencies.
Titled, Beyond the Economist Condescension: Nigeria’s Re-engineering Under Tinubu is Unstoppable, the statement accused the foreign publication of presenting a distorted picture of Nigeria and the Tinubu administration.
Dare said foreign publications often viewed Nigeria through a “cracked, distorted lens,” while relying on sensationalist narratives about the country’s economic and political situation.
The Presidency particularly rejected the claim that Nigerians broadly dislike President Tinubu, describing it as a “lazy, hollow fiction” that fails to account for the administration’s economic reforms since May 2023.
It argued that Tinubu inherited a severely weakened economy, citing the fuel subsidy regime, foreign exchange distortions, strained public finances and other structural challenges.
According to the Presidency, the administration confronted these challenges through reforms including the removal of fuel subsidy and the rationalisation of the foreign exchange market.
It said the reforms had helped save trillions of naira, redirect resources towards development and improve fiscal sustainability.
The Presidency also cited the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, NELFUND, as one of the administration’s major achievements, saying hundreds of thousands of indigent students had gained access to higher education without the burden of tuition.
Other achievements highlighted include local government financial autonomy, the increase in the national minimum wage, cheaper public transportation and support for farmers.
The Presidency maintained that while the reforms had brought significant economic challenges and hardship, they were necessary to correct decades of economic distortion.
It insisted that the Tinubu administration’s economic transformation remains on course and “unstoppable,” urging Nigerians and international observers to assess the government against the conditions it inherited in 2023.
