Daniel Bwala, a spokesman for President Bola Tinubu, has acknowledged that more Nigerians slipped into poverty as a result of the economic reforms introduced by the administration.
Bwala, however, defended the reforms, saying they were necessary to move the country forward despite the hardship and discomfort they caused.
He spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday.
According to him, there was no way reforms of such magnitude could be implemented without causing temporary hardship.
“Do you know why? It’s simply because we took a reform. There is no part of the world where reform comes with convenience,” Bwala said.
He argued that Nigeria’s large population was already experiencing poverty before the Tinubu administration embarked on its reforms.
“The population is 230 million already at some stage of poverty but we can’t make any progress until reform is carried out,” he said.
Bwala said previous administrations lacked the political courage to undertake such reforms because of concerns about public reaction.
“None of the presidents that came before President Tinubu had the courage to do it because of the fear of what you are saying Today. But the President said we can’t make progress, so he took that reform,” he added.
The presidential spokesman urged opposition politicians and critics to acknowledge that the reforms contributed to the increase in the number of Nigerians living in poverty.
“Please let it be clear, even to the opposition, the reason why you have this number of poor people and some of these doomsday analyses that people are giving is because we undertook a reform,” he said.
Bwala admitted that more Nigerians had fallen into poverty since the reforms began, but insisted that the government had also recorded progress.
“There is no part of the world where you start a reform like that there will not be discomfort, right? More people went down to poverty. Acknowledged. I’m not doubting,” he said.
“Since the reform started till Today, we have made marked progress, which is what we have spent the last three years talking to Nigerians about.
“So you cannot discount the fact that even though there are quite a number of our population that are poor, which we admit, but that we have made progress so far.”
More Nigerians now into poverty because of reform, we had no choice – Presidency