The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria has criticised the Presidency for its response to recent comments made by President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, on Nigeria’s worsening poverty crisis.
In a statement on Monday signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the rights group described the Presidency’s reaction as “childish” and “politically twisted,” accusing the administration of dismissing legitimate concerns by introducing partisan politics into national discourse.
Adesina, while delivering a keynote address at an event organised by Chapel Hill Denham in Lagos, had warned that Nigeria’s per capita income had dropped from $1,847 in 1960 to $824 in 2023, implying that the average Nigerian is now worse off than at independence.
Responding via a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, dismissed the AfDB President’s figures as inaccurate.
He claimed Nigeria’s GDP per capita in 1960 was just $93, adding that the country’s economy only began to grow substantially in the 1970s due to crude oil revenue.
But HURIWA defended Adesina, urging the Presidency to confront Nigeria’s economic realities rather than remain in denial.
“The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria has told President Bola Tinubu to stop berating the President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, on his analogy of the Nigerians’ poverty situation now compared to the 1960s,” Onwubiko said. “The country’s leader is actively living in denial if he pretends to be unaware that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are choking, starving and dying from absolute poverty-induced hardships.”
The group argued that instead of reflecting on Adesina’s factual analysis, which highlighted decades of economic policy failures, institutional weaknesses, and over-reliance on crude oil, the Presidency chose to engage in what it called “petty rebuttals.”
“The truth is that Mr. President introduces partisan politics into everything being discussed about the Nigerian situation, even when those views are from such politically unbiased and unattached personalities and institutions as the President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, or the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund,” the group stated.
“But rather than reflect on the lessons embedded in the factual statement by one of the finest brains out of Nigeria on policy missteps of several administrations in the past and now, the Presidency, through the garrulous Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, decided to sound childish by picking holes in the statement made by the President of the African Development Bank.”
Citing the World Bank’s April 2025 Poverty and Equity Brief for Nigeria, HURIWA pointed out that over 75% of Nigerians in rural areas now live below the poverty line, with 41.3% of urban residents also in poverty. It attributed the dire rural conditions to insecurity, inflation, and long-term economic stagnation.
“HURIWA said everyone who has the gift of discernment and wisdom must know that 1960s Nigeria wasn’t as bad as we are currently, even from the angles of corruption, bad governance, and dictatorial leadership, which is worse now than ever before,” the group added.
“Governments in the 1960s ensured that educational institutions, health institutions and roads were regularly maintained, just as scholarship schemes were liberally offered to the citizens and gaining jobs was easier than it is now. So why is Bayo Onanuga disputing the views of Akinwunmi Adesina, who is one of our very best in terms of knowledge of economics?”(Punch)
