Claims Of Hunger Exaggerated, Says Presidency
The Bola Tinubu administration has dismissed a recent newspaper editorial which it says painted a “misleading and selective” picture of the state of the Nigerian economy.
According to the government, the editorial (not by THE WHISTLER) exaggerated claims of hunger and despair in the country while ignoring its efforts at addressing the challenges.
In a statement issued Thursday, the Presidency said the editorial amounted to “selective pessimism,” and described it as biased.
“Misrepresentations, selective use of projections, and alarmist narratives do not serve the public good; they distract from the genuine progress underway nationwide.
“To suggest, as Daily Trust did in its biased editorial, that “Nigerians are hungry” without recognising the government’s ongoing interventions perpetuates despair instead of empowering citizens with the truth,” said Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Communications.
In the editorial, the newspaper declared that “many Nigerians are hungry, suffering, and struggling to survive under hard economic conditions imposed by several economic factors including record-high inflation rates.”
It argued that “the terribly depleted purchasing power of the citizens continues to bite,” adding that the UNICEF prediction that “33 million people in Nigeria including over 16 million children will not know where their next meal will come from in 2025” are already taking place.
The medium attributed malnutrition crisis in the country to “a variety of factors including inflation, food insecurity, insufficient healthcare infrastructure, cost of transportation, ongoing security challenges and disease outbreaks compounded by low vaccine coverage.”
But while the presidency acknowledged that “some of our citizens face economic challenges,” it insisted that “what is often criticised today are, in fact, the policies that will ensure that Nigerians have a more secure, stable, and prosperous future.”
According to Dare, President Tinubu is taking deliberate steps to “reset our economy from a legacy of consumption without productivity, opacity without accountability, and policy that served the powerful, not the people.”
He cited several interventions to address food security concerns, including the release of “over 42,000 metric tons of grains from federal strategic reserves” and procurement of an additional “117,000 metric tons.”
He said President Tinubu had also activated the Food Security Council and scaled up emergency nutrition support in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Katsina, Sokoto, and Bauchi States.
Dare also remind responded to the newspaper’s claim that most low-income earners had been turned into “off-street beggars” because of “the comparatively worthless value of the naira.”
He said “Since hitting a low of ₦1,800/$1 in March 2024, the naira has rebounded strongly due to: Increased oil receipts and remittances, Restoration of investor confidence, Unification of the FX window, Reduction of FX backlog by over $4 billion (CBN data, May 2025)
“As of August 1, 2025, the naira traded around ₦1,525/$1, a sizable appreciation since its lowest ebb. Nigeria’s FX reserves are stabilising, and foreign portfolio inflows are picking up after major reforms in the monetary and fiscal space.
“The naira has not collapsed—it has been corrected and is now recovering.”
Also, contrary to the newspaper’s claim that the Federal Government’s school feeding programme has “fizzled out,” the presidency maintained that “the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme serves over 9.8 million children in 53,000 schools across 36 states and the FCT.”
The statement added that “over 200,000 cooks and local farmers are engaged in the programme, which is being digitised for transparency and efficiency.”
On social protection measures, the government said “three million vulnerable households have received ₦75,000 each under the Renewed Hope Conditional Cash Transfer, with plans to scale up to 15 million households.” Additionally, “over 396,000 students now benefit from NELFUND tuition loans and stipends.”
Claims Of Hunger Exaggerated, Says Presidency is first published on The Whistler Newspaper
