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Prominent pro-democracy and civil rights advocacy group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to stop berating the President of the African Development Bank(AFDB) Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina on his analogy of the Nigerians' poverty situation now compared to the 1960s just as the Rights group said the country’s leader is actively living in denial if he pretends to be unaware that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are chocking, starving and dying from absolute poverty induced hardships.
According to the group, 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 such as the President of the African Development Bank Dr. Akinwunmi Adeshina, or the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.
In a statement by Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko,
National Coordinator, it said that if the President pretends to be asleep and unaware of the realities on the ground, then he needs to also read up the current report by the World Bank on the growing phenomenon of rural poverty.
HURIWA recalled that the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, had warned that Nigeria is facing a deeper economic regression than many realise, stating that with a current GDP per capita of just $824, Nigerians are significantly worse off than they were at independence in 1960.
Adesina made these remarks in a statement issued Thursday following his keynote address at the 20th anniversary dinner of investment firm Chapel Hill Denham in Lagos.
He stressed the need for Nigeria to radically transform its economic model to become a globally competitive and industrialised nation by 2050.
“Our GDP per capita in 1960 was $1,847. Today, it stands at $824. Nigerians are worse off than 64 years ago,” Adesina declared.
According to him, despite being Africa’s largest economy in terms of GDP, Nigeria’s economic structure remains deeply flawed and unsustainable.
He attributed the nation’s economic decline to decades of policy missteps, institutional weaknesses, over-reliance on crude oil exports, and chronic underinvestment in key sectors.
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 padt and now, the presidency through the garrulous Special Adviser on Information and Strategy decided to sound childish by picking holes on the statement made by the President of the African Development Bank Dr Akinwumi Adesina.
HURIWA said the clever-by-half resort to politically twisted and highly doubtful GDP statistical data churned out by paid agencies in which case Bayo Onanuga thinks that he can deceive gullible Nigerians to believe that we are better off than our Parents were in the 1960s. This statement by Onanuga is farther from the truth. "Only someone who is bereft of knowledge of social studies and history wouldn't know that in the 1960s, citizens of Nigeria were not killed and that economic activities by common citizens were uninterrupted by bandits, terrorists and kidnappers that are now having a field day.
HURIWA recalled that the Presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, in a formal reaction of The Presidency on Sunday night to Adesina’s submission, described his position as based on inaccurate data and a narrow assessment of Nigeria’s economic evolution.
Adesina had while speaking at a recent event, reportedly, cited figures – sourced from Nairametrics – suggesting that Nigeria’s GDP per capita was $1,847 in 1960, compared to $824 today.
In a post on his verified X handle @aonanuga1956, Onanuga dismissed the figures as “not correct,” emphasising that available historical data tell a markedly different story.
He stated, “According to available data, our country’s GDP was $4.2 billion in 1960, and per capita income for a population of 44.9 million was $93—ninety-three, not even one hundred dollars.
“Our GDP did not rise remarkably until the 1970s, when crude earnings ballooned.”
HURIWA faulted the statement by Onanuga by referencing the current expert report on the state of rural poverty in Nigeria which was recently published by the Brettonwood institution: World Bank which highlighted the deteriorating poverty stricken situations of most Nigerians residing in rural areas of Nigeria and even offered reasons for the exponential rise in poverty. HURIWA then wonders whether President Tinubu is also unaware of the report by the World Bank.
HURIWA recalled that World Bank backed the same sentiments echoed by Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina when the Brettonwood institution recently raised a fresh concern over the rising poverty in Nigeria, saying that a staggering 75.5 per cent of rural dwellers live below the poverty line.
The World Bank stated this in its latest April 2025 Poverty and Equity Brief for Nigeria which was obtained yesterday.
It had, earlier last month in its Africa’s Pulse report, during the recently concluded Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington DC, declared that more Nigerians would become poor over the next five years, citing Nigeria’s structural economic weaknesses, dependence on oil revenues and national fragility as key barriers to meaningful poverty reduction.
The World Bank, in its latest brief for Nigeria, painted a gloomy picture of the state of poverty in the country, following worsening economic hardship and inequality among the rural dwellers.
According to the report, while 41.3 per cent of Nigeria’s urban population lives in poverty; the situation is significantly worse in rural areas where economic stagnation, inflation and insecurity have combined to deepen hardship.
It stated, “Based on the most recent official household survey data from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, 30.9 per cent of Nigerians lived below the international extreme poverty line of $2.15 per person per day in 2018/19 before the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report stated.
“Nigeria remains spatially unequal. The poverty rate in northern geopolitical zones was 46.5 per cent in 2018/19, compared with 13.5 per cent for southern ones. Inequality measured by the Gini index was estimated at 35.1 in 2018/19.
HURIWA said everyone who has the gift of discernment and wisdom, must know that the 1960s Nigeria wasn't as bad as we are currently even from the angles of corruption and bad governance, dictatorial leadership which is worse now than ever before even as the deliberately orchestrated bad governance practices of virtually all past civilian administrations since 1999 aside those of Obasanjo, has induced the heightened state of insecurity across Nigeria just as insecurity festers and multiply hunger and poverty.
The Rights group said that the Nigerian currency in the 1960s was far better in value than dollars and pounds sterling but currently President Bola Ahmed Tinubu devalued the Naira and has made the Naira the most worthless currency in the World. HURIWA also said governments in the 1960s ensured that educational institutions, health institutions and the built roads were regularly maintained just as scholarship schemes were liberally offered to the citizens and gaining jobs were easier than it is now. So why is Bayo Onanuga disputing the views of Akinwumi Adesina who is one of our very best in terms of knowledge economics?