Nigeria a poor country, we only exaggerate our wealth — Presidency

President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has said that Nigeria, the most populous African country, is “a very poor country.”

Onanuga said the resources of the country were only being exaggerated by the citizens, adding that the minimum wage of the Nigerian worker was far below of their counterparts’.

Onanuga, in an interview with Arise TV’s Prime Time programme, said “What is happening is that our country is a very very poor country. I will tell you why I said we are a very poor country. I think we have a wrong impression of the wealth of our country. It is exaggerated.

“This country, for example, if we start from minimum wage, you will discover that if you compare our country with Kenya or South Africa, South Africa’s minimum wage is like $240 a month. In Nigeria, our N33,000 is just about $39. Look at the gap.

“You can see that this is reflected in other wages. Look at what the Chief Justice (CJ) of South Africa earns; it’s about at the rate of dollar now, it must be about 20 or 30 times of what Nigeria’s CJ earns. And it’s all over,” Daily Trust reports.

Onanuga’s submission came a few hours after the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, said the minimum wage should be N1m.