George Ehusani, a preacher and the executive director of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, says fuel subsidy removal and other economic policies implemented by President Bola Tinubu were poorly thought out, adding they threw Nigerians into multidimensional poverty.

“We have ended up here because of policies that are not well thought out. He put the cart before the horse. Because how do you remove subsidy when you had time to think before the removal?” Mr Ehusani stated in an ARISE TV interview on Thursday.

He added, “In recent times, the president did say there was hunger before he was born, which, for me, is a very unfortunate statement. The kind of poverty and hunger we have seen in the last three years, I never saw since I was born. Never saw adult men begging on the road for basic foods.”

Amid the negative impacts of subsidy removal and other economic policies, the Tinubu government, on Wednesday, launched a $1 billion Household Prosperity and Empowerment Social Protection Project (HOPE-SP), a social protection programme designed to shift vulnerable Nigerians from temporary relief to lasting economic empowerment and self‑reliance.

The initiative was launched alongside four others, including One-Humanitarian-One Poverty Response System (OHOPRS), the Emergency Cash Transfer Programme, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction Ministerial Blueprint and the Humanity First Magazine, aimed at improving the lives of vulnerable individuals, families and communities across the country.

Mr Ehusani, who faulted the timing of the initiative, described it as a joke, given the multidimensional poverty most Nigerians experience.

“Why is this coming now in the electioneering season? This kind of programme should have come immediately after you announced subsidy removal in 2023. Now it’s coming in 2026, a few months to the election. For me, it’s a lot of hype, but I really wonder how much benefit it will bring to Nigerians.

“When you award a contract worth N15 trillion for the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, you’re talking of N1.4 trillion, as it’s going to transform about 130 million people from poverty. I’m not sure how that’ll happen. I saw that as a bit of a joke,” he noted.

Mr Ehusani expressed doubt about the initiative’s success, citing the failures of several past poverty-reduction interventions.

“When you think about a lot of the programmes that happened in the past, with a lot of ministers having faced the EFCC and ICPC for corruption, a lot of the money will not get to the poor. How does the present government have to show that this one will be different? I don’t know,” he noted.