by Mohammed Bello Doka
May 29, 2026.
Today, May 29, 2026, marks exactly three years since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu stood in Abuja and declared subsidy gone without looking at a single official document. He admitted it himself. No briefing. No data. No plan. Just a declaration. And Nigerians have been paying the price ever since.
Three years later, over 140 million Nigerians now live in poverty. That is 63 percent of the country. The World Bank confirmed it in April 2026. Before the reform, poverty was 56 percent. Today, it is 63 percent. That is not progress. That is a catastrophe.
So where is the money?
The International Monetary Fund estimated subsidy savings at N700 billion every single month. That is roughly two percent of our entire GDP. But the World Bank revealed in its Nigeria Development Update that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has been remitting only about 50 percent of these gains to the Federation Account. The other half? The NNPC says it is settling past arrears. But who authorised those arrears? And why should the Nigerian people pay for the mismanagement of a state-owned company that answers to no one?
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar put it more bluntly. He accused the Tinubu administration of spending N17.5 trillion in just one year on what the government calls energy-security costs and under-recovery. He said these are just a balablu nomenclature for the same subsidy. He described it not as governance but as grand larceny dressed as public expenditure. And he asked the question no official has answered: why are Nigerians still paying as high as N1,000 per litre if subsidy is truly gone?
The Greek philosopher Thucydides warned thousands of years ago that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. Today, the weak are the 140 million Nigerians who cannot afford three meals a day. And the strong are the contractors and cartels around the presidency who have repackaged the same public funds into opaque accounts.
Governor Hope Uzodimma says foreign reserves have risen to 49 billion dollars and that subsidy removal was one of the most consequential anti-corruption measures ever undertaken. But the British economist John Maynard Keynes once said that the avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. In Nigeria, it appears the avoidance of accountability is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward. What good are foreign reserves when your own citizen cannot buy fuel or food?
Professor Adeola Adenikinju, President of the Nigerian Economic Society, asked the exact question on every mind. When you remove subsidy, you are supposed to take care of the poor and vulnerable, but are we doing that now? Poverty has increased. Unemployment is on the high side. In what way have we been able to mitigate the effects of subsidy removal? That is the question we should be asking.
Even the government’s own Finance Minister, Taiwo Oyedele, admitted that subsidy savings alone cannot transform Nigeria. He said even if you remove corruption and waste completely, the resources at our disposal are not enough. Nigeria’s entire annual budget for 200 million people is less than 50 billion dollars. For context, that is less than the budget of the city of New York.
The Roman philosopher Seneca once wrote that it is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more. But what of the man who has nothing? What of the woman who cannot afford medicine? What of the child who goes to bed hungry? Nigeria is not suffering from a lack of resources. It is suffering from a lack of conscience.
Three years ago, Tinubu asked Nigerians to sacrifice. He said the pain would be temporary and the gains would be permanent. But today, the pain is permanent and the gains are invisible. The ghost of the subsidy has not been exorcised. It has merely changed its name.
So I will ask you directly because this is your country and your future. Have you seen any difference since subsidy was removed? Is your life better today than it was on May 29, 2023? Do you believe the N700 billion monthly savings is reaching you or disappearing into private pockets?
Drop your answer in the comments. Yes or no. And share this post to every Nigerian who deserves to know where their money went. Because the only thing worse than a bad reform is a reform that enriches the same people it was meant to restrain. And the only thing worse than that is a silent citizen.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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