From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) has told President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to stop berating the President of the African Development Bank(AFDB), Akinwunmi Adesina on his comparison of Nigerians’ poverty situation now and in the 1960s.
Adesina, at the 20th anniversary dinner of investment firm Chapel Hill Denham in Lagos, had warned that Nigeria “is facing a deeper economic regression than many realise,” stating that with a current GDP per capita of just $824, Nigerians are significantly worse off than they were at independence in 1960.
HURIWA said the country’s leader is actively living in denial if he pretends not to be unaware that hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are chocking, starving and dying from absolute poverty induced hardships.
According to HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement yesterday, “The truth is that, Mr President introduces partisan politics into everything being discussed about the Nigerian situation even when those views are from such politically unbiased and unattached personalities and institutions such as the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwunmi Adesina, or the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.
“If the President pretends to be asleep and unaware of the realities on the ground, then he needs to also read up the current report by the World Bank on the growing phenomenon of rural poverty.”
Onwubiko said the clever-by-half resort to politically twisted and highly doubtful GDP statistical data churned out by “paid agencies in which case Bayo Onanuga thinks that he can deceive gullible Nigerians to believe that we are better off than our Parents were in the 1960s.”
He conclusion, the rights group said that the Nigerian currency in the 1960s was far better in value than dollars and pounds sterling but currently President Bola Ahmed Tinubu devalued the Naira and has made the Naira the most worthless currency in the World.