Tinubu’s Economic Reforms at Two Years: Bold Moves, Painful Outcomes

 

Removing the fuel subsidy was the easy part. Fixing what came after is where Tinubu’s presidency will be judged.

On May 29, 2023, in the first sentence of his inaugural speech, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared: “fuel subsidy is gone.” Four words that ended a policy Nigeria had maintained for over five decades. They were also the opening shot of the most consequential — and most contested — economic reform programme in the country’s democratic history.

Two years on, the results are deeply contradictory. The macroeconomic indicators have moved, some impressively. The lived reality of ordinary Nigerians remains, for many, worse than it was the day Tinubu took office. Both things are true. And holding both things simultaneously is the only honest way to assess where Nigeria stands.

What the Numbers Say: Macro Gains Are Real

The fiscal logic behind the reforms was always sound. The fuel subsidy was consuming between N3 trillion and N4 trillion annually — funds the government was effectively borrowing to burn. The multiple exchange rate system was a corruption machine that cost the country over N13 trillion between 2021 and 2023 alone.[1]

The reforms have delivered measurable macroeconomic improvements. Headline inflation, which peaked at 34.8 percent in December 2024, dropped sharply to 21.82 percent by July 2025 — the steepest mid-year fall in over a decade.[2] External reserves surged from $3.99 billion in 2023 to $42.03 billion by September 2025 — the highest since 2019.[3] The debt service-to-revenue ratio fell from a dangerous 97 percent to below 50 percent.[4] Portfolio investment inflows jumped by 105 percent to $13.35 billion in 2024, a direct signal of restored investor confidence.[5] Nigeria also achieved its highest GDP growth rate since 2014, expanding at 3.4 percent in 2024.[6]

These are not trivial achievements. They represent the structural correction of years of economic mismanagement. Credit where it is due: Tinubu moved faster and further on economic reform in his first six months than his two predecessors managed in twelve years combined.

What the Numbers Hide: The Human Cost Is Also Real

But there is another set of numbers. And they are harder to look at.

139m  Nigerians in poverty by end-2025
 World Bank, October 2025 — up from 87 million in 2023

62%  National poverty rate projected 2026
 World Bank forecast; Nigeria has world’s 2nd largest poor population

115/123  Nigeria’s 2025 Global Hunger Index rank
 Score of 32.8 — classified as ‘serious’ hunger level

 

Food inflation reached 39.93 percent in November 2024.[7] In December of that year, 67 people died in stampedes at food charity events across three Nigerian cities. The UN World Food Programme warned that month: “Never before have there been so many people in Nigeria without food.”[8] A 2024 Afrobarometer survey found that 62 percent of Nigerians believe the removal of the petrol subsidy has worsened their living conditions, while only 18 percent think the savings are being used effectively.[9]

The minimum wage was raised to N70,000 — a figure that looked meaningful until you priced a bag of rice. Bean prices rose 151.75 percent year-on-year by January 2025. Yam prices increased 120.78 percent. Local rice, which cost N514 per kilogram in January 2023, was selling for over N1,000 by early 2024.[10]

The Verdict: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription for Pain

The structural case for Nigeria’s economic reforms was iron-clad. The fuel subsidy was fiscally unsustainable, regressive in its benefits, and riddled with corruption. The multiple exchange rate system was a mechanism for elite extraction dressed up as monetary policy. Any honest economist — including at the IMF, which clarified it did not prescribe these reforms but welcomed them — would concede the interventions were necessary.

Where the Tinubu administration failed is not in the diagnosis but in the management of the human consequences. The cash transfer programme promised to cushion the subsidy removal reached only 1.7 million of a targeted 15 million recipients in its first phase. State governors, flush with increased FAAC allocations, largely spent the windfall on luxury vehicles and prestige projects rather than social services. And the N4 trillion the federal government claims to have redirected into infrastructure has not been accompanied by the transparency that would allow Nigerians to verify the claim.

The macroeconomy is stabilising. The people living in it have not yet felt that stabilisation. The World Bank projects that poverty will not begin to meaningfully decline until 2027 at the earliest — which is also, not coincidentally, election year. Whether that timeline represents genuine structural improvement or political engineering is the central question of the next eighteen months.

Tinubu deserves credit for doing what his predecessors refused to do. He also deserves scrutiny for promising a social safety net and delivering a threadbare one. The bold moves were real. So were the painful outcomes. Nigeria’s verdict on this presidency will ultimately be written not in GDP figures but in the price of a bag of rice.

REFERENCES

[1] Economic Confidential (2025). Between Tinubu’s Subsidy Reforms and Nigerians’ Pain. https://economicconfidential.com/2025/06/tinubus-subsidy-reforms-nigerians/

[2] The Guardian Nigeria (2025). Tinubu’s Reforms Steady Nigerian Economy After Subsidy Removal. https://guardian.ng/news/tinubus-reforms-steady-nigerian-economy-after-subsidy-removal-report/

[3] Blueprint Newspapers (2025). Examining the Gains of Tinubu’s Economic Reforms. https://blueprint.ng/examining-the-gains-of-tinubus-economic-reforms/

[4] Blueprint Newspapers (2025). Debt Service-to-Revenue Ratio Reduced from 97% to Below 50%. https://blueprint.ng/examining-the-gains-of-tinubus-economic-reforms/

[5] The Sun Nigeria (2025). Assessing Tinubu’s Economic Policies in 2 Years. https://thesun.ng/assessing-tinubus-economic-policies-in-2-years/

[6] World Bank / AllAfrica (2025). Nigeria Sees Highest Growth in 10 Years — World Bank Report. https://allafrica.com/stories/202505140150.html

[7] LSE Africa at LSE (2025). Nigeria’s Hunger Crisis Is Getting Worse. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2025/07/11/nigerias-hunger-crisis-is-getting-worse/

[8] People’s Dispatch (2025). World Bank Acknowledges Poverty Increase in Nigeria. https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/10/13/world-bank-acknowledges-poverty-increase-in-nigeria-but-doubles-down-on-the-reforms-causing-it/

[9] Punch Nigeria (2025). Fuel Subsidy: Wasted Windfall? Nigeria’s Unfulfilled Promise [Afrobarometer data]. https://punchng.com/fuel-subsidy-windfall-without-impact/

[10] Dubawa Fact-Check (2025). Examining Agriculture Minister’s Claim Food Prices Crashed by 50% Under Tinubu. https://dubawa.org/examining-agriculture-ministers-claim-food-prices-crashed-by-50-under-tinubus-govt/


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