Nigeria’s ruling All Progressives Congress has rejected assertions that President Bola Tinubu pledged to end poverty nationwide within three years of taking office, arguing that no such deadline was set during the election campaign.
Key takeaways
- APC spokesman Felix Morka said Tinubu did not attach a timetable to poverty eradication.
- Morka said campaign commitments should be treated as goals to be pursued over time, rather than guaranteed results by a fixed date.
- He argued that Nigeria’s economic difficulties must be considered when assessing the government’s anti-poverty record.
- The APC official said a president’s initial four-year mandate is intended for understanding problems, designing policy and beginning implementation.
- A possible second four-year term could provide additional time to carry out those policies, he said.
APC disputes fixed-term poverty pledge
Morka, the party’s national publicity secretary and spokesman for the APC Presidential Campaign Council, addressed the issue on Tuesday during Arise Television’s Morning Show. He said Tinubu had not made a commitment to eliminate poverty either within 100 days or during two or three years in office.
He maintained that the campaign message did not include a calendar for removing poverty, noting that even wealthy countries have been unable to fully eliminate it throughout their post-independence histories.
“The only thing you did not include in what you read was a timetable showing that the president gave you a deadline for ending poverty, something even the richest countries have not succeeded in doing throughout their years after independence,” Morka said.
He added that Tinubu had never stated that poverty would be eradicated in the first month, within the first 100 days, or during the first two or three years of his administration.
Economic reform requires time, spokesman says
Morka said Nigerians should judge the government’s poverty-reduction programme against the wider backdrop of the country’s economic problems. He argued that the administration was trying to tackle underlying structural weaknesses and that it would be unfair to declare failure because every campaign objective had not yet been delivered.
“The president is trying to repair that foundational problem,” he said. “You then seek to judge him by saying that every outcome promised, whether explicitly, indirectly or by implication, has not appeared, and therefore he has not achieved it within three years.”
He also said Nigeria’s constitutional four-year presidential term, together with the prospect of another four years through re-election, was structured to give an elected leader enough time to assess national challenges, formulate policies and put them into effect.
In his view, a first term enables a president to gain a clearer understanding of the problems facing the country and prepare a strategy to address them. If voters grant a second term, that period can be used to extend and deepen implementation of the resulting plans.
