President Bola Tinubu’s government has said that governors and local government chairmen are to blame for the 133 million Nigerians plunged into poverty.

Bayo Onanuga, the special adviser to the president on information and strategy, said on Wednesday that the Tinubu-led government is not to blame for the rise in multidimensional poverty.

“Who should be blamed for the 133 million Nigerians, multidimensionally poor? The federal government? No. The states? Yes. The 774 local councils? Yes,” Mr Onanuga said in a post on X.

The spokesperson maintained that state and local governments are saddled with the responsibility of pulling citizens out of poverty.

“They are constitutionally empowered to provide all the facilities that will take our people out of that crushing poverty bracket. Not the federal government,” he added.

Mr Onanuga had cited a video of Clement Agba, former Minister of National Planning, who said a survey on multidimensional poverty showed that “the federal government has nothing to do with multidimensional poverty.”

Though high multidimensional poverty predated Mr Tinubu’s administration, his economic policies—fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate unification—have sparked hardship and plunged people into poverty.

With the pump price jumping from N145 when Mr Tinubu assumed office in 2023 to over N900, food prices have risen astronomically in the last three years of his government.

A statement published on the World Bank’s website on the Nigeria Development Update in 2025 highlighted that economic hardship, poverty, and food insecurity remain critical issues under Mr Tinubu’s watch.

“Many households continue to face hardship, with poverty and food insecurity remaining high,” the World Bank said. “Food inflation remains a major concern: poor households—who spend up to 70 per cent of their income on food—have seen the cost of a basic food basket rise fivefold between 2019 and 2024.”

Meanwhile, in January, the PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) report on Nigeria’s economic outlook for 2026 projected that the country’s poverty rate would hit 62 per cent, with 141 million of the over 200 million Nigerians plunging into poverty.

The PwC report states that over 33 million Nigerians will face food insecurity due to prevailing economic hardship and widespread insecurity in food-producing states in the country.