President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, has said living conditions are improving for Nigeria’s poorest citizens, attributing the development to increased funding for state and local governments.
Speaking during an interview with Seun Okinbaloye on Channels Television on Sunday, Fasua defended the Tinubu administration’s economic policies, arguing that efforts to reduce poverty must begin at the grassroots.
“The solution to poverty is actually at the local government level,” Fasua said. “That’s the reason why the President has advocated for local government autonomy and has also ensured that the states are a lot more powerful now in terms of the funding that they’re getting.”
He said higher allocations to subnational governments have improved their ability to meet financial obligations, adding that the period when workers went months without salaries has largely ended.
“Those days when civil servants would be owed 18 months, 12 months or six months are gone. Pensioners are getting their money a lot more regularly, and I think that’s where it matters,” he said.
Fasua argued that directing more resources to states and local governments has a direct impact on vulnerable Nigerians because those tiers of government are responsible for salary payments and community-level interventions.
“I can tell you that, honestly, for the very poor people in this country, the situation is getting better and perhaps better than it used to be,” he said.
The presidential aide also said long-term poverty reduction requires comprehensive data on households, pointing to China’s poverty eradication programme as an example.
“If you really want to solve the poverty problem, you are talking about getting documentation on each household,” Fasua said. “The Federal Government knows that you cannot do that; you can only do that through the local government and the state government.”
He maintained that increased funding for states and local governments would improve living conditions and strengthen the administration politically ahead of the 2027 general election.
“These monies that have been pushed to them are what are going to win the election for us,” he said. “I have no doubt that Bola Ahmed Tinubu is coming back in 2027 anyway.”
