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The drama that played out at the headquarters of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), last Monday, when striking workers of the FCT, supported by affiliate unions of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), forced the loquacious Minister of the FCT, Mr. Nyesom Wike, to flee from his office, illustrates the progressive frustration of the Nigerian with the policies of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government. Wike may have to thank divine intervention for his lucky escape because hungry people do not chant alleluia. However, the fact that the workers gave him a chase, as he escaped in his car, despite being guarded by heavily armed policemen, speaks to the fact that many Nigerians have become painfully chastised and alienated from living by Tinubu’s reforms, which have delivered more pain and spread more poverty than they pretended to cure. It also shows that the creation of a palliative economy, where truckloads of rice are shared with hungry Nigerians at intervals, has not really solved the problem of hunger.
This FCTA drama, which occurred early in 2026, could also suggest that many Nigerians only managed to put on smiling faces during the 2025 yuletide to conceal their frustrations and give hope to their children. In truth, even the highest-paid civil servant knows that the Nigerian economy is suffocating, removing smiles and dinner-time love stories from many homes. This reality tells the conscious that the failures of government policies are telling hard on Nigerian families. However, though the pains seem to have united Nigerians, they bear wider implications for Tinubu’s government. They say that Nigerians have gotten tired of the suffer-today-enjoy-tomorrow gospel, which began with the Muhammadu Buhari government and was enhanced by the incumbent. They also indicate that the patience of Nigerians has reached its elastic limits. The expressions are not difficult to see. What may be difficult to see is what options are available to the government to lead Nigerians out of the woods and restore them to their life of manageable satisfaction.
The pain of Nigeria’s economic reality is exacerbated by the PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) projection that 141 million Nigerians, that is about 62% of the population, could go under the poverty line by December 2026. These figures are better understood when compared to the 2023 figures, which put the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line at between 104 million and 114 million. The year 2024 data puts the figure at 124 million Nigerians. Meanwhile, the World Bank had also hinted that about 139 million Nigerians lived in poverty by December 2025.
This progressive march below the poverty line should worry Tinubu’s government because the cornerstone of his economic strategy was the removal of the subsidy on petrol. On that alone lies the blame for his miscalculations, which have brought Nigerians to the present painful reality. Initially hailed by international institutions like the IMF and World Bank as necessary to curb fiscal drain, the removal of the subsidy on petrol triggered immediate and sustained price shocks. Petrol prices surged as a consequence. This directly inflated transportation and production costs across sectors. According to statistics, food inflation, a critical driver of hardship, was severely impacted and exceeded 40% at its peak in 2024. It also remained stubbornly high right into 2025, and pushed up prices of staples like rice, beans, and yam etc.
Headline inflation, which hit a 28-year high of around 34.8% in late 2024, moderated somewhat by the end of 2025. Household purchasing power eroded sharply. Nominal spending rose due to higher prices, but real consumption contracted. The naira, still unified and floated, depreciated significantly, trading at over ₦1,600 to the dollar in parts of 2025, and amplifying import costs for essentials in a country that is heavily reliant on foreign goods. But this statistical easing masked persistent real-world pain.
These policies contributed to a deepening poverty crisis and marked a sharp rise from pre-reform levels of around 40% income poverty in 2023. Multidimensional poverty, encompassing access to food, health, education, and housing, worsened amid insecurity, which disrupted farming in key regions. Rural areas also suffered disproportionately, with poverty rates exceeding 75% in some estimates. Urban dwellers faced skyrocketing rents, utilities, and transport fares. They are also not spared the pain of electricity’s Band A, B or C tariffs amidst consistent darkness. Many families were forced by circumstances to either cut meals or withdraw children from schools. Unemployment and underemployment compounded the misery. Youth unemployment hovered above 40%. The ₦70,000 minimum wage approved in 2024 failed to keep pace with inflation, which rendered it inadequate against the rising cost of food items. Many Nigerians resorted to multiple jobs or informal hustles, yet real incomes stagnated or declined.
The government’s fiscal improvements, like the narrowing of the deficit to around 3% and 4% of GDP, through better revenue collection and non-oil earnings, were touted as successes. External reserves reached multi-year highs of about $47 billion; GDP growth acceleration and oil production rise through investments like the Dangote refinery were also recognised as wins for the reforms. Also, investor confidence showed glimmers of recovery. However, these gains remained disconnected from the everyday reality of the Nigerian. They failed to translate into daily wins that will enhance life and living for the Nigerian worker.
This is why public responses to the reforms always reflected deep frustration. The #EndBadGovernance protests of 2024, which inspired similar protests in 2025, and on-going workers’ union strike, reflect high-level hardship, insecurity, and perceived elite extravagance and corruption amid austerity rhetoric. Together, they indicate that the government is far disconnected from the realities faced by the people. Though these responses were seen as dissent and repressed by the government, through the illegal use of state security institutions, including arrests and prosecution of protesters, they also highlighted tensions between reform imperatives, democratic freedoms, and the government’s sense of insecurity and fear of people’s power, though the government pretends to be tone deaf.
As 2026 unfolds, the future does not look as promising as the government would have Nigerians believe. Available data indicate that there are serious challenges ahead. Though optimistic forecasts from the IMF, World Bank, and Afreximbank suggest inflation could moderate further and potentially ease to between 13% and 20%, with growth stabilising at around 3.5% to 4%, and external balances strengthening further, that is, if reforms persist. It is also expected that Dangote refinery’s full operations might ease fuel imports and cause lower prices. However, persistent high poverty, which is projected to peak at 62% before any decline, risks entrenching inequality and social instability. This fear arises from the fact that, despite the N70,000 minimum wage, income remains weak and cannot impact real growth. In fact, no family of four (father, mother, two children) will survive one week managing N70,000 for food and medicine while not calculating the cost of utilities, clothing, and rent. This reality is exacerbated by a very poor job creation index, which, coupled with Nigeria’s exposure and vulnerability to global shocks such as oil prices volatilities and food imports, will negatively impact and reverse macroeconomic gains of the Tinubu government. This, therefore, suggests that without accelerated investments in agriculture, social protection, and productive employment, current hardship may fuel nationwide protests, enhanced japa statistics, or desperation-driven crimes, which will worsen the security situation across the country.
In essence, while 2025 ended for most Nigerians as a year of painful adjustments where Tinubu’s reforms stabilised macroeconomic indicators at the cost of intensified everyday suffering, and the administration’s focus on fiscal discipline and market liberalisation yielded fruits that were visible in data but not in lives of Nigerians, 2026 may usher in some relief if the government thinks through its policies again to critically re-examine them and find out why reform results, shown on data, hardly impact lives of Nigerians. To translate the positive data into practical improvements in the life of Nigerians, the government may have to bridge the gap through targeted interventions, improved, stern, and accountable anti-corruption fight, as well as inclusive governance. These will be essential as failure to do these risks prolonging the cycle of hardship that has already tested national resilience to its limits.
