Nigerians Question Tinubu's Economic Progress Amid Widening Inequality

On his very first day in office in May 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu uttered four words that would reshape life for more than 200 million Nigerians: "Fuel subsidy is gone." The announcement — later paired with a historic unification of the naira's exchange rate — set in motion the most aggressive economic reform program Africa's largest economy had seen in a generation. Nearly two years later, the macroeconomic scoreboard tells a story of progress: GDP growth exceeding 4%, inflation falling from its peak, and foreign reserves climbing past $45 billion [1]. But in the markets of Lagos, the farmlands of Sokoto, and the workshops of Kano, Nigerians are living a starkly different reality — one of ₦1,200-per-liter petrol, ₦25,000 pots of jollof rice, and the daily mathematics of survival [2].

The question consuming Nigeria's public discourse in early 2026 is no longer whether the reforms were necessary. It is who they are working for.

The Macro Picture: A Government That Can Point to Numbers

By the metrics that international lenders and credit agencies care about, Tinubu's reforms have delivered. Nigeria's real GDP grew by approximately 4.3% in 2025, the highest rate in a decade, spanning 13 key economic sectors [3]. The IMF has revised its 2026 growth forecast upward to 4.4%, while both Fitch and S&P Global have upgraded Nigeria's credit outlook to "Stable" [4]. Foreign direct investment surged to $720 million in the third quarter of 2025, up from just $90 million the prior quarter [3].

Source: World Bank Open Data

Data as of Feb 24, 2026CSV

Inflation, which peaked at a punishing 34.8% in late 2024, has been on a sustained decline. By December 2025, the headline rate had moderated to 15.15% — the lowest since November 2020 [5]. Food inflation, the figure that matters most to ordinary households, dropped even more dramatically: from a record 40.87% in June 2024 to 8.89% year-on-year in January 2026, its first single-digit reading in over a decade [6].

The naira, after a traumatic collapse from ₦460 to nearly ₦1,700 per dollar following the forex unification, has clawed back some ground, appreciating roughly 10.6% against the dollar between February 2025 and February 2026 [7]. Foreign reserves, bolstered by improved oil revenues and reduced subsidy outlays, stood at $45.4 billion by the end of 2025 [3].

In a New Year's message, Tinubu declared that "2026 marks the beginning of a more robust phase of economic growth" [8]. His Information Minister has insisted the reforms are "steadying Nigeria and restoring trust" [9].

The Human Cost: 93% Say the Country Is on the Wrong Track

The gulf between the government's triumphalism and the lived experience of most Nigerians is captured with brutal clarity in an Afrobarometer survey released in March 2025. It found that 93% of Nigerians believe their country is headed in the "wrong direction" — a 31-percentage-point deterioration from 2017 [10].

The survey's granular findings paint an even grimmer portrait. Nearly nine in ten citizens (88%) rated the country's economic condition as "fairly bad" or "very bad." More than 95% reported that they or a household member went without a cash income at least once in the prior year. Majorities reported shortages of food (82%), medical care (82%), clean water (74%), and cooking fuel (79%) [10].

Perhaps most damning for the administration: fewer than one in ten Nigerians rated the government positively on improving the living standards of the poor (8%), managing the economy (7%), creating jobs (6%), narrowing the gap between rich and poor (5%), or keeping prices stable (3%) [10].

"These aren't just numbers on a spreadsheet — they represent mothers choosing between feeding their children and buying medicine," said a researcher at the Centre for Democracy and Development in Abuja, who noted that the surveys were conducted as reform impacts were at their most acute.

Source: World Bank / Central Bank of Nigeria

Data as of Feb 24, 2026CSV

The Subsidy Shock: Where Reform Became Trauma

To understand the depth of public anger, one must grasp the scale of the price shock that Tinubu's reforms inflicted. Fuel prices surged from ₦185 per liter to over ₦1,200 — a roughly 550% increase [2]. In a country where fuel costs cascade through every sector of the economy, from transportation to food processing to electricity generation, the effect was devastating.

According to a 2024 Afrobarometer survey, 62% of Nigerians believed the subsidy removal had worsened their living conditions, while only 18% thought the savings were being used effectively [10]. The Nigeria Labour Congress had demanded a new minimum wage of ₦615,000 per month based on actual cost-of-living calculations. The government eventually settled on ₦70,000 — less than a ninth of what labor leaders said workers needed to meet basic needs [11].

That ₦70,000 monthly minimum wage, at the current exchange rate of roughly ₦1,400 per dollar, amounts to approximately $50 per month. Meanwhile, the price of staple foods has skyrocketed. The cost of beans rose 282% in a single year. Local rice jumped 153%. The price of cooking a single pot of jollof rice climbed to ₦25,486 by early 2025 [2].

The humanitarian consequences are measurable. The World Food Programme projected that 33 million Nigerians would face acute food insecurity in 2025, with that number potentially climbing to 35 million in 2026 — the highest on record [12]. Over 129 million Nigerians now live below the poverty line, an increase of 25 million in a single year, according to a joint World Bank–National Bureau of Statistics report [2].

Two Nigerias: The Wealth Gap as Political Fault Line

The pain of economic reform has not been distributed equally, and this asymmetry has become the most politically volatile dimension of the Tinubu era.

Oxfam has documented that the combined wealth of Nigeria's five richest men — totaling $29.9 billion — could theoretically end extreme poverty at a national level [13]. At the top sits Aliko Dangote, whose net worth of $24.8 billion makes him Africa's richest person. His Dangote Cement, despite posting profit margins of 86%, paid an effective tax rate of just 2% over the period analyzed by Oxfam — a figure that has become a lightning rod for public frustration [13].

The regional dimension of inequality is equally stark. Lagos State has a poverty rate of just 4.5%, while Sokoto in the northwest sits at 87% [14]. The top 10% of Nigerian earners take home 14 times more than the bottom 50% [13].

Source: World Bank Open Data

Data as of Feb 24, 2026CSV

The African Democratic Congress, an opposition party, seized on these figures in a March 2026 statement, declaring that "a 63% poverty rate shows Tinubu's economic policies have failed" [15]. The party placed blame squarely on the subsidy removal, arguing that it had "transferred the burden of governance from the state to the poorest citizens."

Critics note that 60% of billionaire wealth in Nigeria is derived from inheritance, monopoly power, or crony connections — a structural dynamic that reform has not disrupted [13]. Oxfam has found that billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens, raising questions about whether the political system is capable of self-correcting the inequality it perpetuates.

The Government's Defense: Pain Before Gain

Administration officials have mounted a consistent defense: the reforms were long overdue, the pain is transitional, and the alternative was national bankruptcy.

The government points to the fact that fuel subsidies had been consuming a staggering share of national revenue — with some analysts estimating the total could have reached ₦14 trillion over a single presidential term if left unreformed [16]. The subsidy regime was also widely understood to benefit fuel smugglers, oligarchs, and politically connected middlemen far more than ordinary citizens.

"The turnaround economy shows an indication of stability while unlocking the stranglehold of the oligarchs on the nation's economy," the government has argued [1]. Revenue, officials note, has more than doubled compared to the pre-reform period.

The IMF has broadly endorsed the direction of Nigeria's reforms, though it has urged greater attention to social protection. In March 2026, an IMF Article IV consultation team began a two-week assessment of Nigeria's economy, with a scheduled engagement with the Senate leadership to discuss the reform trajectory [17]. The World Bank has similarly projected average growth of 3.6% between 2025 and 2026, crediting the subsidy removal, exchange-rate unification, and tighter monetary policy with improving business confidence [17].

The government has also established a ₦200 billion intervention fund for micro, small, and medium enterprises, and claims to be targeting the "next phase of reforms" at removing barriers to investment and ensuring "reform gains reach all Nigerians" [3].

The Credibility Gap: Where Is the Money?

Yet the government's case is undermined by a persistent transparency problem. Despite the enormous fiscal savings from subsidy removal, there has been no comprehensive public accounting of how those savings have been deployed. The Afrobarometer survey found that only 18% of Nigerians believed the savings were being used effectively — a figure that speaks to a deep crisis of institutional trust [10].

The opacity is compounded by the minimum wage debacle. When workers demanded a wage that reflected actual living costs, the government offered a figure that inflation rendered inadequate almost immediately. The ₦70,000 minimum wage is not indexed to inflation, meaning its real value erodes with every passing month [11].

Human Rights Watch, in an October 2024 report titled "Hope or Hardship?", documented how the combined effects of subsidy removal and naira devaluation had "exacerbated the cost of living for many Nigerians," with particular harm to low-income households [2]. The report noted that purchasing power had collapsed even as headline economic indicators improved.

The Iran War Complication

Nigeria's economic recovery now faces an additional external threat. The ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting roughly one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade just as Nigerian farmers prepare for planting season. Fertilizer prices have surged 30–77% since the conflict began on February 28, threatening to reverse the recent moderation in food inflation that the Tinubu administration has cited as evidence of progress.

For a country where 35 million people already face food insecurity, a new wave of agricultural input price shocks could be catastrophic — and would arrive through no fault of domestic policy.

What Comes Next: The Year Tinubu Must Deliver

As the IMF concludes its March 2026 consultation and the Senate prepares to scrutinize the economic outlook, the Tinubu administration finds itself at an inflection point. The macro indicators are moving in the right direction. Inflation is falling. Growth is accelerating. The naira has stabilized. International institutions are cautiously supportive.

But none of this matters to the 141 million Nigerians below the poverty line if it doesn't translate into lower food prices, accessible healthcare, and wages that can cover basic needs. The administration's own allies have acknowledged this: Pan African Visions titled its January 2026 analysis "Nigeria: The Year Tinubu Must Deliver" [18].

The structural challenge is enormous. Nigeria's GDP per capita, measured in current U.S. dollars, collapsed from $2,899 in 2022 to just $1,084 in 2024 — largely a function of the naira's devaluation — making the average Nigerian poorer in global terms even as the economy grew in local currency [19]. The population continues to grow at roughly 2.4% per year, meaning the economy must run faster just to stand still.

The question is whether the Tinubu administration can convert its macro stabilization into tangible improvements in living standards before the political window closes. The Afrobarometer data suggests that window is already narrow. With 93% of citizens saying the country is on the wrong track, the Nigerian public has rendered its interim verdict on the great reform experiment. The final verdict depends on what happens next — whether the pain that has been endured was an investment in a better future, or simply a redistribution of suffering from one set of elites to another.