The Human Rights Writers Association has thrown its weight behind the President of the African Development Bank, Dr Akinwunmi Adesina, regarding the country’s worsening poverty crisis.
To this end, it has charged the Presidency not to live in denial over its criticism of comments made by Dr Adesina during a keynote address at an event organized by Chapel Hill Denham in Lagos.
The AfDB President had warned that Nigeria’s per capita income has plummeted from $1,847 in 1960 to just $824 today.
He regretted that the average Nigerian was worse off now than at independence.
But in a rebuttal via his verified X handle, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, dismissed Adesina’s figures as inaccurate.
According to Onanuga, Nigeria’s GDP per capita in 1960 was $93, not $1,847, adding that the country’s economic trajectory only took off in the 1970s due to crude oil revenue.
