by Mohammed Bello Doka
10 May, 2026.
Since President Bola Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023, his administration has championed a narrative of bold reforms and strategic mastery. Supporters hail him as a master strategist whose removal of fuel subsidies, naira float, and market-oriented policies will eventually deliver prosperity. Yet the evidence from the past three years paints a different picture: a cascade of worsening indicators that have deepened poverty, insecurity, and division while ordinary Nigerians bear the brunt. What is presented as strategy has often unfolded as a tragedy for the nation.
Inflation tells a stark story. Upon Tinubu's inauguration, headline inflation stood around 22%. It surged to peaks above 34% in late 2024, driven by fuel price hikes and naira devaluation of over 230% against the dollar. Food inflation hit even higher levels, with households spending the vast majority of income on basic sustenance. By early 2026, inflation had moderated to around 15% but remained elevated, with recent upticks amid external pressures. The cumulative effect has eroded purchasing power dramatically, pushing millions deeper into hardship.
Poverty has expanded alongside these price shocks. Estimates indicate the national poverty rate climbed toward 60-63% by 2025, affecting over 140 million Nigerians. The World Bank and other analyses link this rise directly to the reform shocks, which removed subsidies without adequate cushions for the most vulnerable. Real wages collapsed as food and transport costs skyrocketed, turning what was already a challenge into a broader crisis of survival.
Electricity supply, a perennial headache, has shown limited and inconsistent progress. Available generation capacity has hovered around 4,000-5,000 MW despite installed capacity exceeding 13,000 MW, with frequent grid collapses and gas supply constraints limiting output. Nigerians continue to endure blackouts that stifle businesses, education, and daily life, even as reforms aim at decentralization. The gap between promise and delivery remains vast.
Insecurity has not abated but intensified in key dimensions. Reports document thousands of kidnapping incidents, with surges in banditry, school abductions, and ransom-driven crime, particularly in the North-West and North-Central regions. Fatalities from violence, including terrorist attacks, banditry, and clashes, have mounted, displacing communities and disrupting agriculture and education. Kidnapping for ransom evolved into a near-industrial enterprise, generating enormous illicit revenues while terrorizing citizens. Far from strategic containment, the security apparatus has struggled to reverse these trends.
Maternal and child health metrics underscore the human cost. Nigeria retains one of the world's highest maternal mortality ratios, with estimates around 500-1,000 deaths per 100,000 live births depending on the source and period, contributing a disproportionate share of global figures. Out-of-school children remain among the highest globally, exceeding 10 million, as insecurity, poverty, and economic pressures keep learners away from classrooms. These are not abstract statistics; they represent lives cut short and futures foreclosed.
Freedom of speech and press freedoms have faced notable pressures. Multiple reports catalog attacks on journalists, arrests, detentions, and intimidation of media houses under various pretexts, including cybercrime laws. While the administration has voiced commitments to media independence, documented incidents of harassment and restrictions have fueled concerns about shrinking civic space and accountability.
Beyond these indicators, Tinubu's tenure has laid bare deeper structural truths about Nigeria. It has exposed the fragility of institutions, the depth of elite capture, and the ease with which vocal critics—from politicians to figures in academia and civil society—can shift allegiances when incentives align. Many former sharp detractors have become defenders, a pattern that underscores transactional politics more than ideological conviction. North-South and Muslim-Christian divides have not healed; in some cases, they have sharpened amid resource competition, insecurity, and uneven policy impacts, deepening ethnic and religious suspicions rather than fostering unity.
Shamelessly, a cohort of paid media influencers and online voices continues to peddle the "Mr. Strategy" narrative. They celebrate macroeconomic projections or selective data points while glossing over ground realities of hunger, fear, and diminished opportunities. This echo chamber serves partisan ends but convinces fewer of those grappling with daily survival.
In this environment, the only sectors functioning at what some might call "international standard" are banditry and associated criminal enterprises—kidnapping networks, data fraud operations ("data boys"), and parallel economies of violence and deceit. These have professionalized, monetized chaos, and exploited governance gaps with ruthless efficiency, while core public institutions strain under the weight of reforms that delivered shock without sufficient stabilization.
Tinubu's approach has undeniably forced uncomfortable conversations about subsidy dependence, exchange rate distortions, and the need for fiscal discipline. Yet strategy without empathy, timing, or comprehensive safeguards becomes tragedy when it immiserates the many to test theories on the masses. Nigerians deserved reforms that build resilience, not ones that first dismantle livelihoods on a wager of future gains. Three years on, the ledger of human suffering—poverty, insecurity, lost education, health crises, and eroded trust—outweighs the rhetorical triumphs. True strategy would confront these failures head-on rather than double down on a narrative untethered from the lived despair of millions. Nigeria's potential remains immense, but realizing it requires more than bold declarations; it demands course correction rooted in the people's realities.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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Opinion