After three years in the saddle, the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration presents as one of the most consequential and controversial tenures since our renascent democracy. Perhaps, no administration since 1999 has attempted economic restructuring at the speed and scale witnessed under Tinubu.
Literally, at the blast of the whistle shortly after inauguration in May, 2023, the government dismantled fuel subsidy, liberalised the foreign exchange market and tightened fiscal policy. The administration whizzed through those tough policies in weeks, thus significantly altering the nation’s economic architecture and redirecting its trajectory. It later launched ambitious tax and revenue reforms.
The nation has continued to toss precariously in the headwinds of those precipitous economic plunges. The administration argued that Nigeria’s old economic order — built on subsidies, multiple exchange rates, debt accumulation and weak revenue mobilisation — had become unsustainable.
Three years later, the debate is no longer whether those distortions existed. The real question is whether the cure has not become almost as painful as the disease. The Tinubu government now bestrides the cusp of two competing realities: improving macroeconomic indicators and worsening socioeconomic conditions for millions of Nigerians. That paradox, that seeming contradiction now defines the administration at the eve of the twilight of its first term.
The monstrous security challenge plaguing the country, however, remains the administration’s major weakness and its greatest albatross. It is getting its severest roasting from increasingly frustrated and angry Nigerians over the worsening insecurity in the land. Although the government argues that military operations have improved security in parts of the country, kidnappings, banditry, communal violence and attacks on rural communities, a security maelstrom he inherited from his predecessor, persist.
Reuters cited Amnesty International’s estimates suggesting that more than 10,000 people have been killed since Tinubu assumed office in 2023. Without visible security improvement, economic recovery remains fragile. Agriculture investments, transportation and industrial growth cannot fully recover in an atmosphere of persistent insecurity.
This year’s Children’s Day was marked last week Wednesday in a sullen, doomy and gloomy condition because some 81 children, among them toddlers, are languishing in the dens of soulless terrorists. They include 39 primary and secondary school pupils, who were abducted alongside seven teachers three weeks ago by terrorists right inside their schools in Ogbomoso area of Oyo State.
Among the victims are toddlers between ages two and seven. One of the teachers, Mr. Oyedokun Olugbade, was beheaded three days after the kidnap. Another 42 children were abducted on May 15, 2026, by suspected Boko Haram militants during an attack on Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State.
On November 17, 2025, bandits attacked the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga town, Kebbi State, killing two staff members and abducting 25 female students. However, following intensive military and police search operations, all the abducted girls were safely released without ransom just over a week later. The school’s Vice Principal, Hassan Yakubu Makuku, was shot and killed while resisting the attackers and a security guard later died from injuries sustained in the gunfight.
It is hard to imagine the kind of blood that runs through the veins of the criminals who could subject toddlers to the ghoulish dread of abduction. Kidnapping of schoolchildren has sadly become too common in parts of the country, turning schools into targets instead of safe spaces for learning.
This latest abduction has left families in Ogbomoso shattered. Parents are living every parent’s worst nightmare not knowing if their sons and daughters are safe, hungry or worse. A deeply heart-rending video making rounds online, depicts the mothers of schoolchildren kidnapped in Ogbomoso, appealing to the government and the public in profuse tears for urgent intervention to bring their kids back home safely.
The clip shows three women standing in front of the school signboard in Yawota. One of them, identified as Madam Aduke, speaks with visible pain and anger, while the others stand beside her looking morose. Their voices crack as they narrate how armed men stormed the school and took away their children.
The mothers described the fear and helplessness they are going through, begging authorities not to abandon them in this dark moment. “Our children were taken from school… we don’t know where they are,” one of them says in pitiable forlorness, her face the personification of anguish.
The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) is already threatening to shut down schools nationwide if the recurrent attacks on institutions of learning are not checked.
President Tinubu recently attempted to explain away the renewed kidnapping orgy in many parts of the nation. He said many of the sponsors of the renewed terrorism are beneficiaries of fuel subsidy, who were obviously fighting back because his administration ended the heist that constituted a noxious leech sucking the nation’s oil wealth.
The President evoked pity as he spoke almost in exasperation. And it speaks volumes about the extent of the moral abyss into which Nigeria has sunk for invidious and unconscionable individuals to resort to sheer criminality for being stopped from further pillaging the country.
But the President should not allow himself to be cowed into helplessness. He ought to rather identify those involved and stop them before they stop him. As an executive president, who has demonstrated being an intrepid leader with the courage of his convictions, he has all it takes to stop them. It is a crucial moment for his administration because Nigerians are getting fed up with government’s prevarications on the worsening insecurity.
However, in his address to mark the third anniversary of his administration on Friday, the President assured that security remains central to his mission. He said while the country continues to confront the challenges head-on, progress is being made. He assured that the government would not relent until every Nigerian can live, work, travel and dream in safety.
He said he is not oblivious of the sacrifices many families have made in recent years. He added that he shares the people’s hopes for a better Nigeria, even as he promised that the sacrifices would not be in vain.
That is reassuring. But it has become ineluctable for him to walk his talk. The terrorists must be caged and tamed now or never. An administration going into an election year and seeking reelection must at least show the people that it is capable of securing their lives.
The terrorists should not remain elusive or invincible for too long in this era of sophisticated technology such as drones and satellite. They should be smoked out of their holes and dealt with. And those children in the terrorists’ dens in Oyo and Borno should be rescued unhurt.
On the economic front, several indicators, on paper, speak well for the administration, suggesting that the reforms are beginning to stabilise the economy. According to the data gleaned from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth improved from 2.74 per cent in 2023 to 3.4 per cent in 2024, with the services sector contributing more than 57 per cent of aggregate GDP.
The fiscal deficit also narrowed significantly. According to Reuters, the government shrank the deficit from 5.4 per cent of GDP in 2023 to around three per cent in 2024. This,according to the Nigeria Development Update (NDU), was a major improvement driven by a sharp increase in the revenues of the entire Federation, which rose from N16.8 trillion in 2023 (7.2% of GDP) to an estimated N31.9 trillion in 2024 (11.5% of GDP).
Foreign reserves improved, investor confidence gradually returned to government securities and Nigeria’s current account position strengthened after the naira was liberalised. Analysts argue that these developments restored a measure of credibility to economic management.
Oil production also recorded a modest recovery, averaging roughly 1.54 million barrels per day in late 2024 compared with weaker output levels earlier in the administration.
The nation’s economy also accelerated in 2025, with real annual GDP growth reaching 3.87% and nominal GDP hitting ₦441.5 trillion, up from 3.38% growth and a nominal value of ₦372.8 trillion in 2024. Experts say the expansion was driven largely by strong performances in the services and industrial sectors alongside recent GDP rebasing. A detailed comparison between 2024 and 2025 shows steady improvements across key economic indicators.
The government also successfully narrowed its budget deficit by roughly 90.68 per cent in the third quarter of 2025, falling to a fiscal gap of ₦330 billion from a projected ₦3.53 trillion. This drastic improvement kept the deficit-to-GDP ratio at 2.29 per cent, firmly within the three per cent limit.
According to experts, factors that drove the deficit reduction included increased non-oil revenue collections and government tax reforms as well as tighter expenditure management.
The Acting World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Taimur Sanda, declared recently about the country’s economy: “Nigeria has made impressive strides to restore macroeconomic stability. With the improvement in the fiscal situation, Nigeria now has a historic opportunity to improve the quantity and quality of development spending; investing more in human capital, social protection and infrastructure.
“The allocation of public resources can begin to shift away from the past unsustainable pattern and rather towards meeting Nigeria’s large development needs, including the government playing its essential role of providing basic public services and serving as an enabler of private sector–led growth.”
The government’s promoters have continued to argue that Tinubu did what previous administrations avoided. These, according to them, included confronting subsidy distortions; ending currency arbitrage and forcing Nigeria to face economic reality.
In many respects, they have some points. Nigeria’s pre-2023 economic structure was increasingly unsustainable. Fuel subsidy consumed trillions of naira annually. Exchange-rate distortions encouraged rent-seeking and debt servicing swallowed enormous portions of federal revenue. The administration deserves some thumbs-up for confronting these structural weaknesses directly rather than postponing them.
However, the human cost has been severe. It is almost akin to a Pyrrhic victory. Yet, macroeconomic statistics tell only one side of the story. For millions of Nigerians, the reforms translated immediately into higher transport fares, soaring food prices, rising electricity costs, business closures and declining purchasing power.
Inflation became the defining social reality of the Tinubu years. Nigeria’s headline inflation climbed above 30 per cent at various points, while food inflation approached or exceeded 40 per cent in parts of 2024 and 2025. The naira’s sharp depreciation after the forex exchange liberalisation worsened imported inflation and increased production costs across nearly every sector of the economy.
Development agencies estimated that more than 31 million Nigerians faced acute food insecurity during the period as inflation, insecurity and subsidy removal combined to deepen hardships, misery and poverty.
This is where the administration’s political headache and public image lie. While economists may debate the necessity of reforms, ordinary Nigerians, not literate in macroeconomics, judge governments through daily survival.
Their own yardsticks with which they score any government in power are encapsulated in food prices, transport costs, rent, electricity and income stability. On these measures, many households are worse off today than they were in 2023. That perception explains the widening disconnect between government optimism and public frustration.
Perhaps, one of the administration’s greatest political weaknesses has been insufficient social cushioning and ineffective communication. Many Nigerians do not necessarily reject reform itself. What many reject is the pervasive impression that citizens alone are carrying the burden, while the political leaders remain insulated from sacrifice.
This feeling is all the more accentuated by the rather irksome flamboyant lifestyles being openly exhibited by many of the political leaders at all levels and the profligacy that still shapes government business in many respects.
The reforms may have been economically rational, but they appeared socially under-prepared. There were no adequate bulwarks deliberately put in place by the authorities to appropriately cushion the the pains of the harsh reforms.
Cash-transfer programmes and relief efforts failed to match the speed and scale of inflationary shocks. Many of the palliatives being shelled out from the federal level through the states hardly reached the vulnerable population for which they were meant, except in a few states. Some political leaders would rather channel them to their cronies.
The humongous revenues accrued to the states every month do not reflect in the living conditions of the people in most states. Although, most of them now pay salaries and emoluments as and when due, people are still roasting in the cauldron deep misery and poverty. Small businesses are struggling under rising operating costs, while insecurity continues to weaken agriculture and rural productivity.
The result is a presidency that can point to improving fiscal indicators, while simultaneously presiding over one of the most difficult co as st-of-living periods in recent Nigerian history.
As the administration enters the final stretch before the next election cycle, the political challenge is becoming clearer. The first three years focused heavily on stabilisation and structural correction. The final phase must focus on relief and recovery. The reforms must now wear a human face.
The government’s survival politically may depend less on GDP figures this time and more on whether Nigerians begin to feel tangible improvement in daily life. That means prioritising food affordability, electricity supply, transport stability, security and job creation.
Inflation reduction must become an emergency national objective. Agriculture requires aggressive intervention through rural security, irrigation, mechanisation and logistics support. Power-sector reforms must move faster to reduce dependence on expensive diesel generation.
Most importantly, social protection must expand beyond rhetoric into visible and transparent support for vulnerable households. Without that transition from “reform” to “relief,” the administration risks appearing technically competent but socially disconnected.
In the final analysis, within his three years in office, Tinubu has undeniably changed the direction of Nigeria’s economy more aggressively than any president in recent democratic history. His administration can credibly claim stronger revenue performance, improved fiscal discipline, exchange-rate transparency and moderate GDP recovery.
But critics can equally point to inflation, declining purchasing power, food insecurity, rising debt pressures and persistent insecurity.
The ultimate judgment of the Tinubu presidency may, therefore, depend on one question: Will Nigerians eventually reap enough benefit from the painful reforms to justify the sacrifice? That is the central political and economic question facing the nation and which the administration must tackle squarely as we inch toward 2027.