The economy is one leg of a tripod upon which any nation aspiring to be great stands, the other two being political stability and a strong military force. Under Tinubu’s regime, Nigeria is getting weaker on all three, but the most disastrous is the economy. Nigeria used to be the largest economy in Africa, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that stood at about $523b about 11 years ago, but today, even after some questionable rebasing of the GDP, Nigeria is now the fourth largest economy in Africa with a GDP that stands at about $280b. This is about a fifty per cent reduction in our GDP.
The priority of any government that wants to revamp its economy is the provision of stable electricity. Power is the ability to do work. Electricity provides the needed power for the populace to work. Without electricity, the populace, especially the masses, are denied the ability to produce what they will eat. In a country where there’s stable electricity, an industrious youth needs just a clipper to open a barber’s workshop at the corner of his house. In Nigeria, that youth needs to be a millionaire to even own a barber’s workshop. He needs to have a generator to provide his own power and buys fuel at about N1,000.00 per litre to power the generator. At the end of the day, in addition to the exorbitant transportation cost, his business collapses and he is thrown into the labour market wandering around searching for non-existent jobs. He eventually ends up as an armed robber, kidnapper, terrorist, or an insurgent, where he is brainwashed that even though this life has failed him, there’s another life in heaven that has been prepared for him if he murders other people who do not agree with his own faith. Of course, he will end up being killed before the age of 25 or highest 30 years. This is how a government that is insensitive to the welfare of its people ends up, indirectly being the murderers of its citizens.
Tinubu was very clear in his campaign promises that if he doesn’t fix our electricity problems, he should be voted out in 2027. If it were in saner climes, he will not even contest at all, having failed woefully to give Nigerians electricity. In 2024, Nigeria witnessed more than 11 national grid collapses, while in 2025, Nigeria has witnessed three grid collapses. When the supply of electricity suddenly goes below 1000 mw, the national grid collapses. It is shameful that Nigeria has not crossed more than 4,500 mw of electricity since Tinubu took office despite the billions invested in it. Nigeria is practically in darkness in Tinubu’s regime. To worsen the woes of Nigerians, Tinubu divided the population into band A, B, C, etc to apportion light according to how rich you are. If you are rich, the government will make you pay very exorbitant tariffs for the electricity. If you can’t afford it, you are offloaded to a lower band where you are not entitled to light at all. Tinubu’s recommendation as a cure to insufficient light is for Nigerians to switch off their light to conserve electricity. His minister’s solution is that Nigerians should switch off their refrigerators to conserve electricity. This government is completely bereft of the solution to Nigeria’s electricity problems and Nigeria is going to remain in the woods throughout Tinubu’s regime. The people whom Tinubu employed to provide electricity for Nigerians have since cornered the resources to build mansions for themselves in the name of house warming.
Agriculture is the surest pathway for the people to be able to feed themselves. In the 1960s and 1970s, Nigeria earned its foreign exchange substantially from agriculture. Tinubu assured Nigerians of food security if elected. Even President Buhari made efforts to ensure that food was available in comparably cheaper prices. Nigeria was able to achieve rice sufficiency in Buhari’s regime. Immediately Tinubu came in, with his lackadaisical approach to issues of security that saw people massacred in Benue and Plateau, the food baskets of Nigeria, the production of food gradually started declining. As the insecurity continued unabated in Katsina, where more than 52 people were murdered while praying to God in their worship places, in Zamfara, where bandits hold sway, in Borno, where Boko Haram and ISWAP have resurged, and with the entire North being almost overrun by outlaws without any solution in sight, food scarcity may not be easily tamed under Tinubu.
As usual with everything Tinubu, the recommended solution to any national malaise always result in worse outcomes. The Agriculture Minister of State, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, revealed that Tinubu had instructed them to crash the price of agricultural products. In pursuance to this directive, Nigeria borders were thrown open for the importation of cheap, mostly unhealthy, genetically modified, and substantially expired rice and other products that have sometimes lasted for years in the storage facilities of their origin countries before being shipped to Nigeria. These agricultural products land in Nigeria at a more cheaper rate than the domestically produced agricultural products with the resultant effect that domestic farmers will be unable to sell their agricultural products at a profit or even at the cost price, but at a price that is substantially lower than their cost price, leading them to make huge losses from each transaction. Most of the farmers have folded up their farming activities and resorted to subsistence farming channelled towards feeding their families alone.
This meant that the country will spend its scarce foreign exchange to import agricultural products that ought to be made locally, thereby leading to more pressure on the naira, as more naira will be chasing the fewer dollars we have which will inevitably lead to the further devaluation of the naira. It’s also very unhealthy to consume such expired foods that will lead many to hospitals with possibility of multiple organ failures. Many may be unaware that all the financial investments Nigerians made in the Stock Exchange companies involved in agro related businesses were lost or substantially wiped out. They all felt betrayed by their president who encouraged them to invest in agriculture but turned around to sabotage their efforts by ordering massive importation to “crash” the price. The solution to agricultural food scarcity is simple, give the farmers security and receive a bumper harvest from them, and the price will come down automatically.
Corruption is the cankerworm that eats up the nation’s wealth. It’s the abuse of public office for private gain. No corrupt nation eventually becomes a superpower nation because all their wealth is used to serve the powerful, not the people. How can a President award a N15 trillion naira Lagos-Calabar coastal road to a company in which his family has interest without going through competitive procurement process and without an environmental impact assessment report? The dilapidated inland roads in Nigeria are yearning for repairs. The Minister of Works is pleading for more resources to repair the inland dilapidated roads, but the President is busy awarding such humongous amount of borrowed money for his family business. Our trailers and tankers fall along the dilapidated roads like pack of cards, most times killing many people in the process, yet this government is adamant on spending money on projects that are not the priority for the growth of the nation’s economy. The NNPCL under Tinubu has become a cash cow for the boys. The former MD, Mele Kyari supervised the disappearance of billions of dollars meant to repair the refineries and the current MD, Odulari is immersed in controversies bordering on management or mismanagement of funds. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Beta Edu, who was suspended for alleged misapplication or misappropriation of funds, has not been tried. Once you are an APC member your sins are forgiven. The EFCC was a regular face against Delta PDP officials, including quizzing Okowa, former Governor of Delta State for corruption. Immediately, they defected to APC, nothing is heard of it again.
Our doctors and nurses are either on strike or threatening to go on strike because of the dilapidated state of our healthcare system. The doctors and nurses are poorly remunerated and their members who left for greener pastures abroad owing to awful working conditions are not replaced, leading to work overload on the remaining health workers. If this situation continues, our healthcare system might collapse. Same with education. Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is threatening to go on strike and shut down the universities from functioning. If they do, the educational system may collapse. The contractors, who worked for government, have not been paid since 2024. If this continues, the infrastructure in the country will become dysfunctional. A nation that has its educational, healthcare, and infrastructural systems in disarray is approaching a failed state.
The insensitive and incompetent removal of fuel subsidy and the unconscionable devaluation of naira by about 300 per cent had led to the astronomical increment in transportation costs, resulting in hyper inflation, high interest rates, toxic operating environment, high energy costs, multiple taxation, macroeconomic volatility, frequent policy flip-flops, etc that are crumbling this economy. Who would have believed that after removing fuel subsidy completely, this regime still wants to impose five per cent fuel tax commencing from January 1st, 2026. This regime boasted that it has achieved its revenue target by August, yet it is still borrowing more than any regime in the past. By December 2025, the total debt of Nigeria will climax to about N160 trillion naira. This government inherited about N77 trillion naira in public debt. Within two years, it had borrowed more than all the governments had borrowed since 1999. The debt servicing burden will soon be unbearable and this may land this country in ruins. Already Nigeria has more malnourished children than war-torn Sudan, and it has reached the level that a woman’s child would die of malaria because she couldn’t afford transportation to take the child to hospital. Nigeria must take a different course if it must survive.