Barrister Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Communication, has admitted that the administration’s economic reforms pushed more Nigerians into poverty.
Bwala reiterated that the country has made “marked progress” since the reforms were introduced.
Bwala spoke during an interview on Channels Television, amid renewed debate over the impact of the administration’s removal of petrol subsidy and foreign exchange reforms.
“Please let it be clear even to the opposition, the reason why you have this number of poor people and some of these doomsday analytics that people are giving is because we undertook a reform,” he said.
“There is no part of the world where you start a reform like that there will not be discomfort.
“More people went down to poverty, acknowledged, but since when the reform started to today, we have made marked progress which is what we have spent the last three years talking to Nigerians about”, he stated.
Bwala said the increase in poverty could not be considered separately from the economic restructuring undertaken by the administration.
“So, you cannot discount that even though there are quite a number of our population that are poor which we admit, but we have made progress so far,” he added.
