The Presidential Spokesman Who Is Out of Touch – Abdul Mahmud

By Abdul Mahmud

Public officials often forget that their words travel further than their offices. A minister, adviser or presidential spokesman may regard an interview as another routine media appearance, but citizens hear something else: an account of how those who govern understand their condition. That is why Bayo Onanuga’s recent remarks during his interview with Charles Aniagolu on Arise Television have provoked such public discomfort. In dismissing claims of widespread hunger and hardship, or suggesting that the suffering Nigerians describe does not correspond with his own observation, the presidential spokesman revealed a troubling distance between official perception and social reality.

A spokesman is not merely a defender of government policy. He is expected to interpret government to citizens and communicate public sentiment back to government. That role requires attentiveness and restraint. Loyalty to an administration cannot replace acquaintance with everyday life. Once public communication becomes detached from lived experience, official statements begin to sound less like explanations and more like declarations from another country. The difficulty with Onanuga’s comments lies not simply in disagreement over economic policy. Citizens may differ on whether reforms are necessary or whether temporary pain is justified by promised future gains. The difficulty lies in denying the existence or scale of hardship at a time when ordinary Nigerians have reorganised their lives around scarcity.

One does not require a statistical report to notice what has happened to the country. Markets have become sites of daily adjustments. Families that once bought food in quantity now purchase in fragments. Transport costs determine whether workers go to work every day. School fees compete with food bills. Medical appointments are postponed. Social ceremonies increasingly function as informal fundraising opportunities. Across urban centres and smaller communities alike, survival has become an exercise in difficult calculation.

Global institutions have not ignored these developments. Reports over the past two years from international development and humanitarian agencies have repeatedly identified Nigeria as facing rising food insecurity, deteriorating household purchasing power and growing poverty levels. Food inflation has remained persistently high while incomes have failed to keep pace with rising costs. Such findings may be debated in terms of causes and remedies, but dismissing the underlying distress places official claims in direct conflict with evidence and with lived experience. Supporters of President Bola Tinubu would argue, with some justification, that inherited economic distortions required difficult choices. They point to fuel subsidy removal, exchange rate liberalisation and broader economic reforms as unavoidable measures postponed by previous administrations. Economic reforms are rarely painless, and no serious observer expects structural adjustments to produce immediate comfort.

Citizens, however, are entitled to examine outcomes.

Fuel subsidy removal increased transportation costs almost immediately and produced consequences across every layer of economic life. Exchange rate reforms increased the cost of imports and raised production expenses for local businesses. Prices adjusted upward. Household budgets contracted. Small businesses struggled to absorb higher operating costs. Wages remained largely static while inflation reduced their value in practical terms.

Economic arguments lose persuasive force when daily experience moves in the opposite direction.

A worker whose salary has technically increased but whose purchasing power has collapsed does not experience improvement. Families that once maintained modest stability now depend on relatives abroad, informal loans or support networks. Professionals quietly adjust expectations downward. Retirement savings lose value. Young people postpone milestones once considered ordinary. Many Nigerians who previously occupied stable middle class positions now speak openly about survival.

This explains why remarks denying widespread hardship have generated such resentment. Citizens can endure sacrifice more easily than dismissal. Governments gain public trust when they acknowledge burdens honestly and explain their choices with candour. Public anger grows when officials appear insulated from consequences borne by everyone else. Political office creates its own form of distance. Daily exposure to official briefings, controlled environments and protected routines can produce an incomplete picture of national life. Those who occupy such spaces risk believing that public complaints are exaggerated because deprivation is no longer visible within their immediate surroundings.

That danger is not unique to Nigeria.

Political history contains many examples of governing classes that gradually lost contact with social conditions until public frustration became impossible to ignore. The comparison many Nigerians drew after Onanuga’s interview was the famous phrase associated with pre-revolutionary France: “Let them eat cake.” Historians have long disputed whether Marie Antoinette ever uttered those words. Their symbolic significance remains powerful because they represent indifference born of distance. When ordinary people complained of hunger, the phrase imagined rulers so removed from public suffering that they responded with disbelief and absurdity.

No one suggests that Nigeria is at the same stage as pre-revolutionary France, nor should historical comparisons be stretched beyond their limits. The lesson remains useful. Public officials must resist the temptation to substitute personal observation for collective reality. Bayo Onanuga’s responsibility is not to agree with every criticism of the Tinubu administration. His responsibility is to speak with enough humility to recognise that millions of Nigerians understand their own circumstances better than any official briefing can describe.

A spokesman who cannot hear public hardship risks speaking only to power while losing the confidence of the public he is meant to address.