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By Wale Osofisan
Nigeria’s political conversation has become too binary. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s supporters point to the reforms since 2023 and argue that the country is finally addressing problems that previous administrations repeatedly postponed. His critics point to the cost of living, poverty, insecurity and the continuing weakness of public services and conclude that the reforms have failed. Neither position tells the whole story.
There is a more useful way to look at what has happened since May 2023: what was inherited, what has changed, what has not changed, and whether the reforms are beginning to create the conditions for the kind of economic transformation Nigeria needs. I am not making a case for the government because everything it has done has been right. It has not. Nor am I suggesting that economic statistics somehow cancel out what people are experiencing. They do not.
A family that has seen the cost of food and transport rise sharply does not experience an improvement in foreign exchange reserves. A young Nigerian without a job is not comforted by a stronger fiscal position. A manufacturer running a generator for much of the day does not experience GDP growth in the same way as an economist does. Those realities matter.
But so does what has changed underneath them.When President Tinubu came into office, Nigeria faced a combination of problems that had become increasingly difficult to manage: a costly fuel subsidy, severe foreign exchange distortions, weak fiscal revenues, rising debt pressures and an economy struggling to generate sufficient growth and productive employment.
The decision to remove the fuel subsidy and liberalise the foreign exchange market was always going to be painful. The question is whether the alternative was sustainable. The evidence increasingly suggests that the reforms have improved some of the underlying fundamentals.
The IMF’s 2026 Article IV assessment is particularly significant. It says that reforms over the past three years have produced improved macroeconomic outcomes and strengthened resilience. The IMF points specifically to the ending of fuel subsidies and deficit monetisation, tighter monetary policy and exchange-rate liberalisation as reforms that have reduced fiscal vulnerabilities, rebuilt external buffers and improved the functioning of the foreign exchange market. Gross international reserves rose to about $46 billion at the end of 2025, from $40 billion at the end of 2024.
Growth has also held up better than some of the more pessimistic predictions suggested. Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics reported real GDP growth of 3.87 percent for 2025, while growth accelerated to 4.43 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026.
These are not spectacular numbers for a country of Nigeria’s size and potential. But they are important. They suggest that the economy is not simply absorbing the shock of reform. It is beginning to adjust.
There are also signs that inflationary pressures are easing, although the picture needs to be interpreted carefully because of the rebasing of the consumer price index. The CBN reported headline inflation of 15.15 percent in December 2025, while the IMF reported inflation at 15.4 percent in March 2026.
The World Bank’s assessment is broadly similar: Nigeria has made meaningful progress in restoring macroeconomic stability, with stronger external and fiscal positions and continued economic growth. But it makes an equally important point. Household incomes have not fully recovered and poverty remains high. That is where the government’s real test begins. Stabilisation is not the destination. It is the platform from which the next phase of reform has to be built.
The IMF itself makes this distinction. The next priorities are productivity, electricity, agriculture, infrastructure, human capital, security and stronger social protection.
In other words, Nigeria now needs to move from fixing the balance sheet to improving the balance of opportunity.
This is where I think the conversation around the Renewed Hope Agenda needs to become more demanding. It is not enough for government to demonstrate that the economy is more stable. It has to demonstrate that stability is translating into investment, jobs, better services and greater economic participation.
Electricity is perhaps the clearest example.
A stronger fiscal position means little to a small manufacturer if electricity remains unreliable and the cost of running a generator continues to undermine competitiveness. Likewise, an improved foreign exchange market does not by itself create jobs for the millions of young Nigerians entering the labour market.
Agriculture presents a similar challenge. Nigeria has enormous agricultural potential, but production depends on security, infrastructure, access to finance, markets, storage and reliable power. Reform therefore has to be judged not only by how much money is allocated, but by whether farmers are producing more and earning more.
The same applies to education and healthcare. This is also why poverty cannot be treated as an inconvenient statistic in an otherwise positive reform story. The World Bank and IMF estimate that around 63 percent of Nigerians were living in poverty in 2025, with millions more people pushed into poverty as the cost of living adjustment took place. The IMF also estimated that about 27 million Nigerians faced food insecurity in the latter part of 2025.
That is a serious warning. The government’s response therefore has to be about more than defending the reforms. It has to show that the benefits of those reforms are reaching households. Social protection is part of that. But so is economic opportunity.
The government has enrolled millions of households in the cash transfer system, but the IMF has also noted that implementation has been slower than planned and that transfers remain limited. This is where the role of Nigeria’s 36 state governments becomes increasingly important.
The Federal Government can stabilise the macroeconomy, reform monetary and fiscal policy and create a better environment for investment. But much of what citizens experience as “government” happens at state and local level. Schools. Primary healthcare. Roads. Water. Agriculture. Markets. Local business environments. Jobs.
The question is therefore not simply whether Nigeria is reforming. It is whether Nigerians can see and feel the results of reform.
This is where I believe the Nigeria Governors’ Forum has an opportunity to do something genuinely useful and innovative. Rather than creating another reporting mechanism or another large collection of government indicators, the Forum could develop a National Social Accountability Compact — a simple, citizen-facing framework through which states agree to measure a small number of outcomes that matter directly to their populations. Perhaps ten or twelve indicators. Not hundreds.
Each state could report, on a quarterly basis, what it promised, what it budgeted, what it delivered and what remains outstanding. The information could be independently checked where possible and made publicly available in a form that citizens, civil society and the media can understand. The objective would not be to create a league table designed to embarrass governors.
It would be to create a common framework for governors to demonstrate performance, learn from one another and identify where implementation is falling behind.
There is already some evidence that the Governors’ Forum can use this kind of mechanism effectively. A 2026 study of the Forum’s Nutrition Scorecard found substantial improvements across a number of state-level nutrition governance measures, including the number of states with functional committees, approved multisectoral plans and prioritised nutrition programmes.
The lesson is not that a scorecard solves governance. It is that what gets measured, discussed and compared can change the quality of attention government gives to an issue. The next step should be to apply that thinking more broadly.
Imagine citizens being able to see, for their state, whether primary health centres are functioning, whether children are attending and learning in school, whether promised roads have been completed, whether water projects are working, whether agricultural programmes are producing results and whether state resources are translating into better services.
That would begin to change the conversation from what governments have announced to what governments have delivered. And that distinction matters.
Nigeria does not have a shortage of policies, strategies, plans or reports. It has a shortage of usable accountability information. A National Social Accountability Compact could help fill that gap while strengthening the role of the Governors’ Forum as a platform for peer learning and performance improvement.
It would also complement the Renewed Hope Agenda rather than compete with it. The Federal Government’s responsibility is to create the conditions for growth and investment. State governments have a critical responsibility to convert those conditions into better economic and social outcomes for their citizens.
That is how reform becomes renewal. So, where does that leave the Tinubu administration? My assessment is neither that the reforms have failed nor that the job is done.
The administration deserves credit for taking on some of Nigeria’s most politically difficult economic distortions and for improving a number of the country’s macroeconomic fundamentals. The IMF, World Bank and other external assessments increasingly recognise that progress. But that progress comes with a responsibility.
The government now has to prove that stabilisation can become prosperity.That means jobs rather than simply GDP growth. Lower business costs rather than simply improved foreign exchange liquidity. Reliable electricity rather than simply new power-sector policies. Better schools and healthcare rather than simply larger budgets. Greater food security rather than simply agricultural programmes.
And it means giving citizens better ways to see whether their governments are delivering what they promised. The administration’s strongest defence will not come from political speeches or from dismissing its critics. It will come from results.
Those results need to be visible not only in GDP figures, reserves and government revenues, but in whether a Nigerian family can afford food, whether a young person can find productive work, whether a business can operate without relying on a generator, whether a farmer can safely cultivate, whether a child is actually learning in school and whether citizens can hold their government to account when it does not deliver.
That is the real promise of renewal. And that is also the ultimate test. Nigeria does not simply need a more stable economy. It needs an economy and a system of government in which more Nigerians can participate, earn, invest, build and hold those responsible for delivering public services to account.That is the standard by which the Renewed Hope Agenda should ultimately be judged.
