The African Democratic Congress has voiced alarm over new World Bank figures showing that 139 million Nigerians are now living below the national poverty line. The party said the finding aligns with a separate assessment from the World Food Program, which recorded 17 million Nigerians facing acute hunger, describing it as the country’s worst food security crisis in almost ten years.

In a statement from its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said the two reports offer clear proof that President Bola Tinubu’s economic program has failed. It warned that continuing the same policies beyond 2027 could push close to 200 million people, about 79 percent of the population, toward poverty.

The ADC urged the president to abandon what it called neoliberal economic policies that have harmed nearly the entire population, or to step aside, arguing that Nigerians cannot continue on the current path.

Abdullahi said the party was deeply troubled that roughly 60 percent of Nigerians, about 139 million people, now fall below the poverty line. He argued this outcome was the predictable result of policies that placed money above people and statistical growth above basic survival.

He said the ADC had long cautioned that economic expansion, higher revenue and growing foreign reserves celebrated by the ruling party mean little if they fail to improve ordinary lives or protect people’s livelihoods. Rather than change direction, he said, the government has persisted with the same approach while portraying hardship as courage and describing harmful outcomes as necessary sacrifices.

Abdullahi said that after three years, the consequences of these policies are now evident. He described the 139 million Nigerians in poverty and 17 million at risk of starvation as a direct reflection of the president’s record, adding that this outcome alone should prompt Tinubu to consider stepping down rather than pursuing another term.

He said Nigeria needs leadership that genuinely understands the struggles of ordinary citizens and judges economic policy by whether it improves people’s lives rather than deepens their hardship. He called for a government that does not enjoy comfort while asking citizens to endure sacrifice, and that avoids excess spending while distributing token relief to the public.

For this reason, he said, the ADC rejects the pattern of short term interventions and emergency measures that have characterized the ruling party’s approach to social support. He argued that poverty cannot be solved through handouts alone but only through an economy that allows Nigerians to produce more food, earn fair incomes and live with dignity.

Abdullahi said an ADC government would pursue structural reforms to address the root causes of hunger. He outlined four priorities: lowering energy costs to make farming viable again and securing rural communities so farmers can safely return to their land and transport produce to markets; boosting domestic food production by rehabilitating Nigeria’s 264 abandoned irrigation projects and improving access to seeds, fertilizer, extension services and storage facilities; building an integrated national food economy through regional production zones that coordinate farming, processing and distribution to cut costs and create rural jobs; and investing directly in people through nutrition, primary healthcare, basic education and skills training, noting that no nation can prosper while its children remain hungry, out of school or unable to read.

He argued that hunger is the clearest measure of economic performance because, unlike other statistics, it cannot be manipulated. Until poverty declines and Nigerian families can once again afford three meals a day, he said, claims of economic success will ring hollow to the people those policies are meant to serve.