Founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc and Anap Foundation, Atedo Peterside, has accused the administration of President Bola Tinubu of implementing economic reforms that favour wealthy Nigerians while leaving millions of poor citizens worse off.
Peterside said the reforms had delivered some benefits to Nigerians with substantial investments and savings, but had failed to improve the living conditions of low-income earners who are increasingly finding it difficult to afford basic necessities.
He made the observations on Monday during an interview on Arise Television, where he examined the uneven impact of the government's economic policies over the past three years.
According to him, while wealthy and upper-middle-class Nigerians may have recorded gains through investments in the stock market and other financial assets, the situation is significantly different for ordinary citizens struggling to survive.
He argued that the widening gap between the economic experiences of the rich and the poor raises questions about the inclusiveness of the government's reform agenda.
“If you’re upper middle class, I can probably show on the blackboard investments in the stock exchange and all that stuff,” Peterside said.
“I can show on the blackboard that you’re probably better off in the last three years. If you’re a low-income worker, like somebody without much savings and struggling to eat — what 100 million Nigerians have to do, to eat two meals a day and struggling to pay your bills, I can show you that you’re a lot worse off.”
The businessman identified the failure to establish effective social safety nets as one of the major shortcomings of the Tinubu administration's economic reform programme.
He said the government had not provided sufficient protection for vulnerable households to absorb the economic shocks associated with the reforms.
Peterside also drew attention to the geographical distribution of poverty in the country, citing 2025 figures from TheCable Index to illustrate the significant differences in poverty levels across the six geopolitical zones.
He identified the North-West, North-East, North-Central and South-South as areas where poverty remains particularly severe.
According to him, only about 12 states and the Federal Capital Territory have poverty rates below 50 per cent.
He said the states performing below the 50 per cent poverty threshold were largely concentrated in the South-West, with Anambra in the South-East and Edo and Delta in the South-South also making the list.
Peterside noted that these regional disparities could shape how citizens perceive and evaluate the impact of the federal government's economic policies.
He suggested that government officials might be disconnected from the realities of poverty in some parts of the country because they do not regularly visit communities where economic deprivation is most pronounced.
“High poverty in Nigeria is largely a zonal problem. It is a problem of the North-West, of the North-East, of the North-Central, and of the South-South,” he said.
The former bank executive insisted that economic reforms should not be judged solely by improvements in investment returns or financial market performance, but also by their impact on the welfare of ordinary Nigerians.
He stressed that the absence of adequate social intervention programmes remains a critical weakness in the implementation of the Tinubu administration's policies, warning that the benefits of economic adjustments would continue to elude millions of vulnerable citizens without deliberate measures to cushion their effects.
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