Atedo Peterside, founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc and Anap Foundation, has said President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms have benefited wealthy Nigerians while worsening the living conditions of millions of low-income earners.
Peterside stated this on Monday during an interview on Arise Television, arguing that although upper-middle-class Nigerians had recorded improvements in their investments and incomes over the past three years, poorer households were struggling to afford basic necessities.
He said the reforms had not adequately addressed the economic difficulties confronting the majority of Nigerians.
“If you’re upper middle class, I can probably show on the blackboard investments in the stock exchange and all that stuff.
“I can show on the blackboard that you’re probably better off in the last three years. If you’re a low-income worker, like somebody without much savings and struggling to eat — what 100 million Nigerians have to do, to eat two meals a day and struggling to pay your bills, I can show you that you’re a lot worse off,” he said.
Peterside faulted the government for failing to establish adequate social safety nets for poor Nigerians while implementing the reforms.
Citing 2025 data from TheCable Index, he said poverty levels varied significantly across the country’s geopolitical zones, with the North-West, North-East, North-Central and South-South bearing a heavy burden.
He said only about 12 states and the Federal Capital Territory had poverty rates below 50 per cent.
According to him, most of the states with poverty rates below that threshold were in the South-West, alongside Anambra in the South-East and Edo and Delta in the South-South.
Peterside said the regional disparities could shape how Nigerians assess the impact of the government’s economic policies.
He added that policymakers might not fully appreciate the depth of poverty in some parts of the country because they did not frequently visit affected communities.
“High poverty in Nigeria is largely a zonal problem. It is a problem of the North-West, of the North-East, of the North-Central, and of the South-South,” he said.
The businessman maintained that the absence of adequate social protection for vulnerable Nigerians remained a major gap in the implementation of the government’s economic reforms.
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