Bayo Onanuga, presidential spokesperson, has berated Nigerians for criticising President Bola Tinubu for the problems he inherited from former President Muhammadu Buhari and past Peoples Democratic Party administrations.

The presidential spokesperson, in an interview with Arise TV on Saturday, said the Tinubu-led government deserves some credit for fuel subsidy removal and the exchange rate harmonisation.

“Many of us in this country, many Nigerians exhibit lack of memory. We have very short memory,” Mr Onanuga said. “We forget where we started from and blaming President Tinubu for the problems Nigeria is going through.”

He added, “I want to start from there and say Nigerians should give this president some credit for stopping the arbitrage that characterised the foreign exchange regime under previous administrations, including the PDP. But people are not just willing to give him credit – some critics.”

Mr Onanuga explained that Mr Tinubu inherited fuel scarcity from his predecessor because the federal government was neck deep in debt to the major fuel importer, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, until the president proffered a solution to the problem.

The presidential aide said Nigerians “forgot” that there was a fuel shortage when Mr Tinubu assumed office in May 2023.

“So when the president announced the removal of the fuel subsidy, the immediate reaction by the NNPC, which has been the major supplier of fuel, was to increase the price of fuel because, at that time, the NNPC was no more willing to import fuel.

“NNPC was saying the federal government was owing it over N4 trillion, and it was also owing its suppliers abroad. What President Tinubu did was to breathe some life into NNPC to resume importing fuel so that fuel can be available. People forget that easily,” Mr Onanuga said.

On the exchange rate unification, Mr Onanuga said Mr Tinubu’s decision stopped the arbitrage that characterised the dual exchange rate under Mr Buhari and past PDP administrations.

“The second policy of the government was the harmonisation of exchange rates. Before President Tinubu took over, the gap between the official and other rates was about N300-N400. Some people were making money if they had access to Emefiele, the then-CBN governor. He can make you a billionaire overnight. That has stopped,” Mr Onanuga said.

The presidential spokesperson said Nigeria could not have survived with fuel subsidy and exchange rates in effect, adding that though “problems” followed Mr Tinubu’s policies, the administration has put in measures to ameliorate the suffering of citizens.

In the past two years, Mr Tinubu’s dual policies of fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate unification have led to a significant increase in fuel prices, from N145 to over N1,000 and later to about N900, while the naira has collapsed from about N700 to a dollar to over N1,600 to a dollar.

Similarly, food prices, the cost of transportation, and living costs have risen astronomically in the past two years under Mr Tinubu’s watch.

With inflation at 24 per cent under Mr Tinubu, Nigeria recorded the largest increase in acute food insecurity globally in 2024, according to the 2025 Global Report on Food Crises published by the Global Network Against Food Crises in collaboration with the Food Security Information Network and UNICEF.

“In West Africa and the Sahel, in Nigeria, an additional 6.9 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity, bringing the total to 31.8 million,” the report said.

The International Monetary Fund reported that poverty and food insecurity remained high under Mr Tinubu.

The World Bank’s Africa Pulse report of April 2025 also stated that Nigeria, under Mr Tinubu, has the highest number of extremely poor people globally, warning that more Nigerians will be plunged into poverty by 2027.