Reforms are for the living, not the dead

There is something profoundly wrong with an economic philosophy that can celebrate an improving economy while millions of citizens are still wondering how they will survive until tomorrow.

Yes, Nigeria needed reform. Nobody who understands the country’s economic history can honestly argue that the old order was sustainable forever. Petrol subsidy, foreign-exchange distortions, weak revenue mobilisation, fiscal leakages and years of policy inconsistency created structural problems that eventually demanded difficult decisions.

But here is the question nobody should be afraid to ask: What exactly is the purpose of economic reform?

Is it to make government books look healthier? Is it to impress international investors? Is it to improve foreign reserves, strengthen the naira market, increase government revenue and produce attractive figures for economists to analyse?

Or is it ultimately about improving the lives of human beings?

Because if reforms are designed for human beings, then human beings must remain the central measurement of their success. Reforms are for the living, not the dead.

An economy is not a spreadsheet. It is the mother deciding whether she can afford school fees. It is the father calculating whether he can buy food after paying transport costs. It is the graduate wondering why his certificate has become a framed decoration. It is the small business owner watching electricity, rent, transportation and raw-material costs consume his margin.

It is the family that has quietly reduced its meals, postponed medical treatment and abandoned plans because survival has become more expensive.

These are not economic statistics. They are Nigerians. And this is where the conversation about Nigeria’s reforms becomes uncomfortable.

The World Bank acknowledges that the country has made meaningful progress towards macroeconomic stabilisation. But the same institution says household incomes have yet to fully recover and poverty remains high.

That contradiction cannot be wished away.The economy may be healing. But is the Nigerian family healing with it?

Nigeria’s latest inflation figures offer an excellent illustration of the distinction between economic statistics and economic experience. Headline inflation fell marginally to 15.39 per cent in August 2026 from 15.43 per cent in July. That sounds encouraging. But the Consumer Price Index itself increased from 145.3 to 146.3 points, meaning prices were still rising, just at a slower rate.

This distinction matters.

When inflation falls from 20 per cent to 15 per cent, the price of a commodity does not magically return to what it was before the inflationary episode. The rate of increase has slowed; the accumulated increase remains.

Tell that to the family whose food bill has doubled. Tell it to the pensioner. Tell it to the artisan. Tell it to the unemployed graduate. Tell it to the widow.

This is why the government must be careful when presenting economic recovery to citizens who are yet to feel it.

A citizen does not eat GDP. Nor does a family pay school fees with foreign reserves. A trader does not settle transport fares with improved fiscal balances. Nor does a young man feed his family with an investor-confidence index.

Those indicators matter. They matter enormously. Without macroeconomic stability, sustainable development becomes difficult. The government is, therefore, entitled to point to improvements in revenue, foreign exchange stability, growth and other indicators.

But those indicators are means, not the destination. The destination is human welfare.

The government itself has acknowledged the painful side of the adjustment. In presenting its reform scorecard, officials argued that subsidy removal and other reforms created fiscal space and prevented deeper economic problems, while also acknowledging the real costs imposed on households and businesses.

Fair enough.

But once government admits that citizens have paid a heavy price for reform, another question becomes unavoidable:

When do the citizens begin to receive the dividend? This is where patience becomes complicated.

Nigerians have repeatedly been told that the pain of today is the price of tomorrow’s prosperity. They have been asked to endure, adjust, sacrifice and believe, even though those giving the advice don’t subscribe to it.

But how long can tomorrow remain tomorrow? There is a dangerous point at which patience becomes exploitation.

There is another point at which sacrifice becomes absurd.

And there is a point at which telling people to keep suffering because the future will eventually be better begins to sound like asking the dying man to remain patient because the hospital is planning a beautiful future.

You cannot reform an economy while allowing the productive population to be economically suffocated. You cannot build a multi-trillion naira economy on millions of people who have been priced out of decent consumption.

You cannot create prosperity by merely transferring the burden from government accounts to household accounts. And you cannot call an economy inclusive if the ordinary citizen is permanently excluded from its benefits.

This is not an argument against reform. It is an argument for completing reform.

The difficult first phase of reform may involve removing distortions. But the second phase must be about creating opportunities. If subsidy removal creates fiscal space, citizens should see better roads, better hospitals, better schools, more reliable electricity, stronger security and productive infrastructure. If foreign-exchange reform attracts capital, that capital should increasingly translate into factories, jobs, production and exports; not merely financial transactions.

If government revenue rises, citizens should be able to see the difference in public services. If economic growth accelerates, employment and household incomes must eventually respond.

Otherwise, we will have succeeded in stabilising the economy while leaving the people destabilised. That is not sustainable reform.

The World Bank’s warning is instructive: stabilisation gains have not yet substantially improved Nigerians’ livelihoods, and meaningful improvement depends on sustained disinflation, stronger inclusive growth, better public services and targeted support for vulnerable citizens.

That should be the next chapter of Nigeria’s reform story.

Not another lecture about sacrifice. Not another parade of statistics. Not another promise that relief is just around the corner.

The Nigerian worker needs purchasing power. The entrepreneur needs an environment in which production makes economic sense. The farmer needs security, storage, roads and access to markets. The young graduate needs productive employment. The family needs affordable food. The patient needs a functioning health system. The child needs quality education. And the elderly need dignity.

This is why the language of reform must now evolve.

The first question was: How do we rescue the Nigerian economy from the brink?

The next question must be: How do we make the rescued economy work for Nigerians?

There is a profound difference between those two questions. The first is about survival of the system. The second is about survival and prosperity of the people. And the second cannot be postponed indefinitely.

The government must, therefore, resist the temptation to measure success solely through macroeconomic indicators. A country can have improving reserves and still have hungry citizens. It can have rising GDP and still have unemployed young people. It can attract foreign capital and still have businesses shutting down. It can improve revenue collection and still have failing public services.

Economic reform must eventually leave the conference room and enter the kitchen. It must leave the spreadsheet and enter the marketplace. It must leave the language of economists and become visible in the lives of ordinary Nigerians. That is when reform becomes meaningful.

There is nothing wrong with asking citizens to make sacrifices for the future. Every serious nation does that.

But there must also be a future worth sacrificing for. Citizens can endure temporary hardship when they can see a credible road out of it. What becomes unbearable is hardship without visible destination; sacrifice without accountability; adjustment without relief; promises without delivery.

Nigeria cannot afford an economy that becomes healthier while its citizens become poorer. The ultimate test of reform is, therefore, not whether the government can announce that the numbers are improving. It is whether the Nigerian can look at his life and honestly say: “Things are finally getting better.”

Until that happens, the reform conversation remains incomplete. Because economies are not reformed for economists. They are not reformed for spreadsheets. They are not reformed for international conferences. They are not reformed merely so governments can boast about fiscal balances.

They are reformed for people. And people are alive today. They cannot eat tomorrow’s promise. They cannot spend next year’s prosperity. They cannot survive indefinitely on the hope that the sacrifice will eventually be worth it. Reforms are for the living, not the dead.