‘Lazy Analysis, Intellectual Fraud’ — Presidency Rejects ‘The Economist’s’ Claim Nigerians Dislike Tinubu

The presidency has faulted a recent report by The Economist which claimed there is growing public discontent with President Bola Tinubu’s administration ahead of the 2027 election.

In a statement on Wednesday, Sunday Dare, special adviser to the president on media and public communications, said The Economist’s claim “smells of opposition and is riddled with inconsistencies”.

On October 1, Nigeria’s Independence Day, The Economist said President Bola Tinubu may win the forthcoming 2027 polls despite public discontent.

In the report titled “Nigerians dislike their president, but may re-elect him anyway”, The Economist cited a worsening security crisis, the biting effects of the economic reforms, and popular political challengers as factors that could work against the president’s re-election bid.

It noted that the president’s apparent confidence was not necessarily a reflection of widespread satisfaction with his administration but more about Nigeria’s complicated electoral dynamics.

“Incumbents, with access to the ruling-party machinery and plentiful cash to dole out goodies, have tended to have an advantage in recent Nigerian elections,” it stated.

However, Dare said beyond what he described as The Economist’s condescension, Nigeria’s re-engineering under Tinubu is unstoppable.

“In their rush to paint a picture of impending doom, structural paralysis, and widespread citizen despair, these overseas observers routinely traffic in sensationalist half-truths,” he said.

“They love to peddle the lazy, hollow fiction that ‘Nigerians hate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,’ packaging localised administrative growing pains into neat, uniform narratives of national rejection.

“This is not merely analytical laziness; it is an intellectual fraud. It completely overlooks the monumental, Herculean task of national salvage undertaken by the Tinubu administration since May 2023.

“President Tinubu did not inherit a functioning, well-oiled state; he inherited a broken economic ecosystem on the precipice of total sovereign bankruptcy.”

Dare noted that for decades, successive petrol subsidy regimes operated as a monumental financial leak, “feeding the insatiable greed of a parasitic portfolio oil mafia while mortgaging the future of generations”.

“The Nigerian economy groaned under multiple, distorted foreign exchange windows that bred corruption and choked legitimate enterprise,” he said.

“Debt service-to-revenue ratios hovered near a staggering 95%, leaving the treasury virtually empty. Decades of underinvestment left critical national assets, security architecture, energy grids, and infrastructural arteries severely fractured.

“Yet, rather than kicking the can down the road like his predecessors, President Tinubu summoned the political courage to confront these structural contradictions head-on.

“By decisively terminating the burdensome fuel subsidy on Day One, the administration stopped the bleeding of national resources, saving the federation trillions of Naira and redirecting funds toward productive capital development and fiscal sustainability.”

He said the implementation of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) has transformed the academic landscape with hundreds of thousands of indigent students now pursuing higher education without the burden of tuition, earning deep appreciation from students and parents nationwide.

“Walk into the lecture halls of federal and state universities, and you will find students and relieved parents whose educational dreams have been rescued by NELFUND,” he said.

“Speak with public servants whose take-home monthly pay has been elevated by progressive wage reforms. Speak with local government chairmen and community leaders who finally have the financial independence to execute localised projects. Engage farmers witnessing targeted interventions.

“These citizens recognise a leader doing the heavy, foundational lifting — someone cleaning up decades of accumulated governance debris. They know that the current reforms are the bitter medicine required to cure a chronic national ailment.”