The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the report by World Bank that seven million Nigerians have been pushed into poverty in the last one year, has belied the integrity posturing of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Recall that the World Bank report on Tuesday said uncontrolled inflation and rising prices forced seven million Nigerians below the poverty line in 2020 alone, just three days after President Buhari claimed 10.5 million persons had been delivered from poverty in the last two years.
On Monday, a BusinessDay report had also disagreed with the President’s claims with statistics.
The PDP would also not let go over the presidential claims, asserting that the report by the World Bank has further vindicated its position that the present administration “runs an uncoordinated and clueless administration that thrives on lies, false performance claims, deceit and perfidious propaganda.”
The party adds: “Nigerans can now clearly see why the APC and President Buhari’s handlers are always in a frenzy to attack our party and other well-meaning Nigerians whenever we point to the poor handling of the economy and on the need for President Buhari to always be factual on pertinent issues of governance in our country.
“Unfortunately, it indeed appears that Mr. President enjoys living in denial while watching millions of Nigerians go down in abject poverty, excruciating hunger and starvation as our country now ranks 98th out of 107 in Global Hunger Index under his watch.
“Otherwise why would Mr. President claim that his administration has lifted over 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty while official figures even from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show worsening poverty rate with 142.2% growth in food inflation and over 82.9 million Nigerians being unable to afford their daily meals due to the failure of the administration to take practical steps to grow and protect the food sector?
“Under President Buhari, Nigerians are now subjected to the worst form of poverty and hardship, with collapsed purchasing power, occasioned by a voodoo economy management that have wrecked our productive sectors and pummeled our naira from the about N167 to a US dollar in 2015 to the current over N500 per dollar.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. President will choose to always bandy fictitious figures and false performance claims, when he has, in a space of six years, destroyed our national productivity and reduced our country to a beggarly nation, a laughing stock and object of pity among the comity of nations.
“The PDP invites Nigerians to note President Buhari and APC’s similar false performance claims in other critical sectors, including power, transportation, road infrastructure, health, education, agriculture, security, aviation among others, where the Buhari administration has been bandying fictitious figures with no tangible project to point at.
“Our party counsels President Buhari, his handlers as well as their party, the APC, to note that Nigerians have seen through their deceitful clams.
“The PDP, once again, urges Mr. President to end his false performance claims and get more competent hands to manage the economy before every Nigerian is turned into a street beggar.
According to online newspaper, Premium Times, the World Bank in its Nigeria Development Update (NDU) released Tuesday, the Washington-based lender added that Nigeria’s economic growth is being hindered by food inflation, heightened insecurity, unemployment and stalled reforms.
According to the update, persistent inflationary pressure is driven largely by accelerating food prices, while the nation’s inflation rate rose steadily throughout 2020 and reached a four-year high in March 2021.
Lead economist for Nigeria and co-author of the report, Marco Hernandez, explained that inflation, especially in food prices, was exacerbating poverty and food insecurity in the country.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Saturday said his government lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty in the last two years.
In his speech delivered to mark the nation’s Democracy Day on June 12, the president said those the government lifted out of poverty include farmers, artisans, market women, and small-scale traders.
“In the last two years we lifted 10.5 million people out of poverty – farmers, small-scale traders, artisans, market women and the like,” Mr Buhari said.
A PREMIUM TIMES fact-check, however, found that the claim was misleading. The report showed that the World Poverty Clock showed that there has been a rise in the number of Nigerians that slipped into extreme poverty within the period.
Development Update
On Tuesday, the World Bank gave a GDP growth forecast for Nigeria of 1.9% in 2021 and 2.1% in 2022, compared with 3.4% this year and 4.0% next year for sub-Saharan Africa.
The report said that while the government took measures to protect the economy against a much deeper recession, it would be essential to set policy foundations for a strong recovery.
The NDU, titled “Resilience through Reforms”, notes that in 2020 the Nigerian economy experienced a shallower contraction of -1.8% than had been projected at the beginning of the pandemic (-3.2%).
Although the economy started to grow again, the report said prices are increasing rapidly, severely impacting Nigerian households.
“As of April 2021, the inflation rate was the highest in four years. Food prices accounted for over 60% of the total increase in inflation,” it said in a separate release.
Reform
Meanwhile, the report acknowledges notable government’s policy reforms aimed at mitigating the impact of the Covid-19 crisis and supporting the recovery. These include steps taken towards reducing fuel subsidies and adjusting electricity tariffs towards more cost-reflective levels, both aimed at expanding the fiscal space for pro-poor spending.
In addition, the report highlights that both the federal and state governments cut nonessential spending and redirected resources towards the COVID-19 response, adding that public-sector transparency has improved, in particular around the operations of the oil and gas sector.
The report however notes that despite the more favorable external environment, with recovering oil prices and growth in advanced economies, a failure to sustain and deepen reforms would threaten both macroeconomic sustainability and policy credibility.
This will limit the government’s ability to address gaps in human and physical capital which is needed to attract private investment, the bank said.
“Nigeria faces interlinked challenges in relation to inflation, limited job opportunities, and insecurity”, said Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria.
”While the government has made efforts to reduce the effect of these by advancing long-delayed policy reforms, it is clear that these reforms will have to be sustained and deepened for Nigeria to realize its development potential.”
Policy proposition
The World Bank in its report proposed near-term policy options aimed at reducing inflation by implementing policies that support macroeconomic stability, inclusive growth, and job creation.
It also called for protection of poor households from the impacts of inflation, adding that government must facilitate access to financing for small and medium enterprises in key sectors to mitigate the effects of inflation and accelerate the recovery.
“Given the urgency to reduce inflation amidst the pandemic, a policy consensus and expedite reform implementation on exchange-rate management, monetary policy, trade policy, fiscal policy, and social protection would help save lives, protect livelihoods, and ensure a faster and sustained recovery,” said Mr Hernandez.