Former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu has expressed concern over the rising poverty rate in Nigeria, stating that it is pushing many citizens into desperate situations.

Shittu, who served as a minister under former President Muhammadu Buhari from 2015 to 2019, shared his personal experience of being unable to assist a woman who pleaded with him for just ₦3,000.

Speaking in an interview on AIT on Sunday, February 2, he recounted how he had earlier received a call from a stranger in Bauchi requesting ₦1,000.

The former minister's remarks highlight the growing economic hardship many Nigerians are facing.

"I mean yesterday, before I left home before I left Ibadan, somebody phoned me from Bauchi begging me for ₦1,000. He said for two days he had not eaten. Again, about a week ago somebody also called me, a woman, who wanted three thousand naira. At the time she wanted that money, unbelievably I myself didn't have that money. And the woman called me thirty times in one day - 30 times!" he said in the interview.

He continued: "I mean, it's not my business to doubt the poverty situation of such people calling. So when you go to such people to ask for their votes or their political support, they don't care what you are capable of doing. What they're interested in is what they can get out of you today."

"Look, people ask me, when I say I don't have money. You don't have ₦3,000. I ask them when you leave the office of minister, do you still get paid? You don't still get paid. Unless you have stolen while in office, it becomes very challenging. I thank God that I have about 10 children who are already graduates. And it is resources from their monthly resources that I used to take care of myself."