Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Economic Affairs, Tope Fasua, has defended the administration’s economic reforms, saying Nigeria has moved beyond the worst phase of the current economic downturn and is now on a path towards stronger growth.
Fasua made the remarks in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Saturday while responding to concerns over rising living costs, poverty, fuel prices and whether the gains recorded in key economic indicators are translating into improved living conditions for ordinary Nigerians.
He said the latest Gross Domestic Product, GDP, figures demonstrate that the government’s reforms are producing results, arguing that the 4.43 per cent growth recorded in the period under review represents the strongest growth in more than a decade.
“Because, in short, it’s because the reforms are working and Mr. President is absolutely correct to say that the numbers are delivering,” Fasua said.
“You said the 4.43% is the highest in a year. I don’t know why you’ve decided to minimise the growth of Nigeria and what the present government is achieving. Because the 4.43% growth for that half year is actually the highest—in fact, for that quarter—is the highest in five years.
“But this 4.43% you’re seeing is the highest in 11 years, since 2015, first quarter. In fact, if you like, since 2014, fourth quarter. That is the highest growth rate.”
Fasua also rejected the suggestion that Nigeria’s manufacturing sector had suffered a sharp decline, saying its contribution to the economy has historically remained within a relatively narrow range.
He attributed the decline in manufacturing’s share of GDP to stronger growth in the services sector, which he said has expanded significantly as Nigeria’s economy becomes increasingly driven by information, technology and social media.
“I also talked about the growth in industrial manufacturing sector. You said it has fallen sharply. I don’t know the meaning of sharply, because when I researched into that, I realised that the manufacturing sector has always hovered between 7% to 9% in this country,” he said.
“It only went down 0.01% between one quarter to the other because services sector, which you are a member of, and we know that the media is a major part of the service sector, and we live in a social media age, we live in an information—that’s why the service sector is growing.”
Fasua listed several indicators which, according to him, demonstrate progress under the Tinubu administration.
He cited Nigeria’s removal from the Financial Action Task Force, FATF, grey list, growth in the stock market, bank recapitalisation, increased capitalisation in the insurance sector, student support through NELFUND and improvements in the country’s debt and foreign reserve positions.
“We are talking of Nigeria being removed from the FATF grey list, that’s a plus. We are talking of the stock market growing by 130 trillion Naira. We are talking of recapitalisation of banks by 4.3 trillion Naira, which was done mostly locally in the stock market,” Fasua said.
“The insurance sector was recapitalised by 300 billion Naira. NELFUND, 350 billion Naira has been given to students, 1.6 million students in this country.”
He also pointed to what he described as improvements in Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio and debt service-to-revenue ratio, as well as the country’s external reserves.
“We’re talking about better debt-to-GDP ratio at 38%, 39%, better debt service-to-revenue ratio falling from 120% in December 2022 to 50%, 60% now. You know, better external reserves of $54 billion,” he said.
Fasua argued that Nigerians should not focus exclusively on negative economic indicators, saying the country’s progress should be assessed by considering both challenges and areas of improvement.
“You can’t pull defeat from the jaws of victory,” he said.
“You have to have mess—because at the end of the day, we’re all in this Nigeria together, whether you like it or not. Arise TV will thrive if Nigeria thrives. In fact, Arise TV is thriving presently because Nigeria is thriving.”
On concerns that incomes have failed to keep pace with the rising cost of living, Fasua disagreed, claiming that earnings have increased across several categories of workers.
“You also mentioned that income has not increased. I don’t know where you got that from. Income, I can challenge all of you sitting on the set today, all of your incomes have increased, have doubled in the last two years,” he said.
He said the same trend could be seen among civil servants and artisans, arguing that workers across the economy are increasingly charging more for their services.
Fasua also criticised what he described as excessive emphasis on negative economic narratives, urging the media to report positive developments alongside the challenges facing Nigerians.
“So, please, let us not be engaging in what is probably known in Germany as the schadenfreude, you know, where we sort of celebrate the bad side of things,” he said.
“We have to know that there’s value in selling the positives and moving away from the idea that only bad news is news. Even good news is news. And as far as Nigeria is concerned, we’re actually moving forward.”
Responding to concerns over poverty, Fasua challenged the use of international estimates on the number of Nigerians living in poverty, arguing that organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, IMF, do not have the capacity to independently establish poverty figures across the country.
“The IMF has absolutely no capacity to tell that data, to say who is poor, who is not poor in Nigeria. They don’t have the boots on ground to go to any of these places, the remotest part of this country, to see what is happening,” he said.
Fasua said the IMF and other international institutions rely on data from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, among other sources.
He further argued that employment figures should be considered alongside poverty and unemployment statistics when assessing the state of the Nigerian economy.
“I went and got the data of people who are employed in Nigeria across sectors. It was 90 million people,” he said, adding that his own assessment put the figure at about 88 million, which he rounded to 90 million.
He argued that the number of employed Nigerians has implications for the number of people being supported by those workers.
“If 90 million people are employed and each person is responsible for an average of two people, he doesn’t only feed himself, he feeds himself and feeds one person,” Fasua said.
“There are people who are employed that can feed 20. There are some who are employed that can only feed themselves.”
He also argued that some forms of employment, particularly online work, entertainment and other emerging sectors, are not adequately captured in official employment statistics.
“In fact, there are many sectors that are not captured in the NBS data. People working online these days, people making skits, people making comedy, and all that, they’re not captured as employed in the NBS data,” he said.
On fuel prices, Fasua acknowledged their impact on inflation but said Nigeria should not be judged solely by the cost of petrol.
“Now, let’s talk about the fuel prices, which is a key issue right now, and the fact that that is actually what’s ticking up inflation. Luckily, inflation has begun to trend down,” he said.
He attributed the recent increase in crude oil prices to the US-Iran war and said the development had contributed to higher fuel prices.
However, he maintained that Nigeria had made progress in refining petroleum products domestically.
“Because of the US-Iran war, we started to see an uptick in the price of crude, and this has resulted in an increase in the price of fuel,” Fasua said.
“But we cannot judge a country by the price of fuel alone. If you look at that sector alone, you’ll see that, you know, Nigeria became a net exporter of many refined petroleum products like Jet A1, like petroleum itself, PMS, using the Dangote platform.”
Fasua said he expects inflation and interest rates to continue easing while expressing optimism about the outlook for the naira.
“Certainly to stay the course, because like I’m sure, the worst is over for the Nigerian economy in terms of when the economy was in a downturn,” he said.
“The worst, we got to worst in 2023, the shock, immediate shock after-effects of all that of those reforms in 2023. 2024 was the toughest year. 2025 was the year that inflation started to reduce, not only because it was rebased, but because prices started to fall.”
He said food prices had also begun to ease, although he acknowledged that farmers had raised concerns over declining prices.
“Inflation is being managed. Even interest rates will soon start to go down. The Naira is projected to get stronger,” Fasua said.
Turning to the broader economic strategy, Fasua said the government’s focus was increasingly shifting towards productivity, domestic value addition and exports of finished products.
“The focus of the government is clearly on productivity, value addition to the raw materials that we send out, including food out of this country, all those crops and crude oil,” he said.
“It’s a new economy that you should position for to benefit from this new economy, not living in the past.”
He cited Nigeria’s growing manufacturing and export activities as examples, including the export of vehicles and solar panels.
“People like, you know, Innoson Motors, you don’t hear a lot of noise about this, Nord, and co. You know, even solar panels, we exported about N78 billion worth of solar panels in 2025 alone,” he said.
Fasua also called for greater attention to the role of state and local governments in addressing economic challenges, arguing that the Federal Government cannot solve every problem facing Nigerians.
“The fact that the states and the local governments have power,” he said.
“Tinubu will not solve every problem, okay? But he has empowered the states.”
He urged Nigerians to hold state and local government authorities accountable for the resources allocated to them, rather than focusing solely on the President and the Federal Government.
“You know, so there’s a lot of money being pushed. People should reposition,”he concluded.
Boluwatife Enome
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