₦airaland Forum

Special Adviser to the President on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, has said that Nigeria’s economic recovery will not benefit everyone simultaneously, but current indices suggest that President Bola Tinubu’s reforms are beginning to yield results.

Fasua, who in an interview with Trust TV on Thursday, cautioned against negative rhetoric about the economy, stressing that transformation is a gradual process that cannot happen overnight.

“What’s really at stake now is that many people who control the narrative — especially the media — seem not to be trying to imagine whether Nigeria could actually get better. And when Nigeria is going to get better, it’s not going to get better for everybody at the same time. And sometimes you may just not notice that it has got better,” he said.

Fasua argued that recent economic data indicate Tinubu’s administration is making progress.

“Many indices are pointing to it looks like this Tinubu man is getting it right,” he stated.

“If inflation is dropping month on month for five months, if foreign reserves are growing and now we’re talking about $42 billion, if trade surpluses are growing — this year, half year alone, we’ve done N12 trillion. The whole of last year we did N16 trillion in trade surpluses. In half the year we’ve done N12 trillion. We probably will do N20 trillion or N25 trillion this year. If all of these things are looking up, so why complain?”

The presidential aide also noted improvements in energy and food prices.

According to him, the reduction in the price of petroleum products by Dangote Refinery was already easing cost pressures on Nigerians, despite criticisms from some quarters.

“Even the petroleum prices that went up are coming down, Dangote is bringing it down. And we’ve seen instances where prices of foods are coming down, and another interest group comes to say the government is crashing the price of food to hurt them, not knowing that if we actually have 230 million Nigerians, if the cost of food comes down, it benefits 230 million people, including those who are complaining,” Fasua explained.


He accused vested interests of prioritising profits from exports over domestic needs, noting that such practices undermine the welfare of ordinary Nigerians.

“Every farmer at that level, including the people who back them up, including the so-called aggregators, they want to export everything, no matter what happens to Nigerians. And in exporting everything they export and now they start to chase them — where is the export proceeds? Maybe you get 20% of the export proceeds back, the rest of the money goes abroad,” he said.

On Nigeria’s current economic hardship, Fasua urged patience, insisting that challenges were rooted in both colonial history and present realities.

“The poverty and inequality in the land has historical background… For us to catch up to the level where people want us to be now, it’s going to be a process,” he noted.

nedu666:
The only nation whose govt claims trade surplus of 16 trillion in 2024. 12 trillion half year in 2025 yet your currency is not appreciating

Paramount01:
From 1600 to 1495 is not appreciation?na wao, na yousabi sha

Racoon:
Of course those directly benefitting from the useless, directionless and impactless govt anti people policies are operating a different economy. They claimed subsidy savings yet they are suffocating the downtrodden masses with neck-Constricting taxations and

Lovit:
[b]We are balling daily [/b]irrespective of what APC does.

nedu666:
The only nation whose govt claims trade surplus of 16 trillion in 2024. 12 trillion half year in 2025 yet your currency is not appreciating

Paramount01:
From 1600 to 1495 is not appreciation?na wao, na yousabi sha

Menclothing1:
Show us your tax documents must rubbish to ever complain about is tax tax is progressive u pay as u earn Nigeria tax is less than 10 percent when huge amount of countries are doing 30-40 percent

Out of 230m population only 3m is paying direct tax Wvich am sure u not even among

ambale:
Where did you get that 3m is paying tax

Even those who might not be paying personal income tax are paying VAT

Almost all registered companies are paying taxes, levies, even transport workers and market women pay different levies everyday

So where is your misinformation coming from?