Tinubu’s prosperity theatre: Billions borrowed, N70,000 in relief, bigger hardship
By Blaise Udunze
Indeed, there is perhaps no greater demonstration of Nigeria’s extraordinary capacity for political comedy than the government’s recurring dramatic celebration of economic prosperity in a country where millions of citizens are painfully struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. Apparently, and ‘no doubt’, it would be said that prosperity has acquired a new definition under President Bola Tinubu’s administration. Funny enough, it is no longer measured by what a family can afford, how comfortably a worker can survive on a monthly salary, how many young people can secure meaningful employment or whether businesses can operate without borrowing themselves into extinction, which keeps many wondering what it could be. It is now measured by how impressively government officials can present economic statistics, how enthusiastically they can announce policy achievements and how frequently they can congratulate themselves for rescuing an economy whose citizens are still waiting to be rescued.
Welcome to Nigeria, where the economy can be recovering while the people are collapsing under the weight of recovery.
The government speaks of economic stabilisation, improved foreign exchange conditions, growing revenue, rising investment prospects and renewed investor confidence. These are important economic indicators, and nobody disputes their relevance. But there is something profoundly troubling about an economic success story that appears to have an independent existence, completely detached from the people whose welfare it is supposed to improve.
If the economy is doing so wonderfully, one is tempted to ask an obvious and rather inconvenient question: who exactly is enjoying the prosperity, the masses or the few ‘elites’?
This question obviously becomes not just troubling alone but even more compelling following former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s recent intervention at the Financial Times Africa Summit in London. It would be recalled that Obasanjo questioned the impact of Tinubu’s economic reforms. He objectively argued that the naira’s depreciation from approximately N500 to the dollar to N1,500 had effectively made Nigerians 300 per cent poorer, which obviously many Nigerians concurred with. He also challenged the administration’s insistence that citizens should give the reforms more time, maintaining that he could not identify sufficient evidence of improvement in the everyday economy.
Whether one agrees entirely with Obasanjo’s arithmetic or not, his intervention captures a fundamental economic reality that government statistics cannot conveniently explain away: the dramatic erosion of purchasing power.
There is a peculiar irony in a country where its former president is questioning the prosperity narrative while the incumbent administration continues to celebrate economic progress. Perhaps Nigeria has reached a stage where poverty must first obtain clearance from the government’s economic scorecard before citizens are permitted to acknowledge it.
What the government in power has failed to understand is that for the average Nigerian, economic recovery is not a government press release. It is beyond news publications; which automatically tells you that it is mainly the ability to buy food without conducting a family budget summit, pay electricity bills without sacrificing other necessities, afford transportation without having a second thought or negotiating with one’s conscience and take a sick child to the hospital without wondering which household expense must be abandoned.
Prosperity is not an abstract figure presented at a policy briefing. It is a lived experience.
Unfortunately, for many Nigerians, the distance between official economic optimism and personal economic reality has become almost geographical.
Consider inflation. The September 2026 headline inflation rate reportedly moderated to 14.63 per cent from 15.39 per cent in August, while food inflation remained alarming at 19.59 percent, with painful experience. Government can understandably celebrate the decline. But a reduction in the rate at which prices increase does not mean that prices have returned to affordable levels. It simply means that the speed of the assault has slowed.
If a bag of rice becomes unaffordable at extraordinary speed and subsequently becomes unaffordable at a slightly slower speed, should the household celebrate economic relief? Perhaps government expects families to congratulate themselves for suffering at a more moderate rate.
The situation becomes even more interesting when the government’s wage policy enters the conversation.
Just recently, on October 28, 2026, the Trade Union Congress rejected the Federal Government’s proposed N70,000 transport allowance, insisting that workers require a substantial salary increase rather than another temporary relief arrangement, which is nothing less than the reality. The congress proposed that the salary of the lowest-paid federal worker should rise to N300,000. This, TUC also argued that it must be with corresponding adjustments across other salary levels. It also raised concerns about outstanding 2023 wage-award obligations and the failure to implement an agreement concerning health workers’ salaries.
The TUC further alleged that more than 80 per cent of states and workers in the informal sector had not benefited from any wage award.
What a fascinating economic arrangement! Government is celebrating reforms, but organised labour is asking for wages that can sustain human existence. While policymakers are discussing economic recovery, workers are discussing how to survive the journey to their workplaces.
The N70,000 transport allowance is particularly revealing. In an economy where transportation costs, food prices and other household expenses have risen significantly, government appears to believe that a temporary allowance can compensate for a structural collapse in purchasing power.
The TUC’s rejection is therefore more than a labour dispute. It is a verdict on the inadequacy of government interventions.
Come to think of it, if workers are expected to celebrate N70,000 in temporary support, perhaps the government should also explain how a family is expected to distribute that generosity among transportation, food, accommodation, school fees and healthcare.
Indeed, the contrast becomes more difficult to ignore when the President’s latest borrowing request is considered.
Again, on October 27, 2026, Tinubu reportedly wrote the National Assembly seeking approval for approximately $20.52 billion and €1.04 billion in additional external borrowing to finance projects and programmes across infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare, education, water supply, security, employment generation and other sectors, which it claims is to fund projects, not the election, contrary to the opposition’s view.
Though the Presidency has argued that the borrowing is necessary to address the country’s infrastructure funding gap and accelerate economic development. But one thing has always stood out: the fact that the claims have been noted to be the norm without positive results. Well, their arguments are legitimate considerations. It is understandable that no responsible economic argument suggests that borrowing is inherently wrong. Yes, countries borrow to finance productive investments, provided the resources are prudently deployed and generate sufficient economic and social returns.
However, the contradiction is difficult to overlook. At a time when government is celebrating increased revenue, improved economic indicators and the fiscal benefits of subsidy removal, it is simultaneously seeking another enormous foreign borrowing package.
One must therefore ask: how much prosperity can an economy celebrate while repeatedly returning to international creditors for additional financing?
More importantly, what guarantees exist that these borrowed resources will translate into better living conditions for citizens?
Nigeria’s problem has never been a complete absence of development plans, borrowing arrangements or ambitious policy announcements. The problem has consistently been the gap between promises, implementation and measurable outcomes.
It is one thing to borrow billions of dollars and euros in the name of development, even with a huge concern as the nation’s public debt has climbed to an unprecedented N166.79 trillion. The fact is that it is another example to demonstrate that those billions have delivered functional hospitals, dependable electricity, accessible roads, quality schools and productive employment for the people to attest to.
Nigerians have heard enough development promises to populate an entire library. What they need now is evidence of delivery.
The same contradiction is visible in the labour market. Unarguably, it is real that millions of young Nigerians enter an economy that has not created sufficient productive opportunities to absorb them. As a practice today, businesses struggle with high operating costs, unreliable electricity, expensive financing, multiple taxation and unpredictable policies. Manufacturers must contend with the cost of generating their own electricity before producing goods that consumers can barely afford.
And there is a huge contradiction in many fields today, as our hospitals train medical professionals who leave for better opportunities abroad. Our universities produce graduates who increasingly view migration as an economic strategy. Skilled professionals, artisans and entrepreneurs are discovering that the Nigerian dream sometimes requires leaving Nigeria.
Perhaps this is another indicator of prosperity that has escaped the government’s economic dashboard: the growing determination of citizens to experience their country’s opportunities somewhere else.
Meanwhile, insecurity continues to undermine agricultural productivity, investment and ordinary economic activities. Farmers cannot maximise production where communities are threatened, roads are dangerous and access to farmlands is restricted. Families cannot enjoy prosperity when their greatest daily concern is whether their loved ones will return home safely.
The uncomfortable truth is that Nigeria does not lack economic potential. Here, what it lacks now is the consistency, accountability and institutional discipline, which is solemnly required to convert that potential into broad-based prosperity.
The removal of petrol subsidy, exchange-rate reforms and other difficult policy decisions were presented as necessary sacrifices for a better economic future. There was merit in addressing structural weaknesses that had distorted the economy for years. The fact is that economic reform is not a religious doctrine that must be defended regardless of its consequences. It must is a public policy instrument whose success must ultimately be judged by its outcomes.
The obvious concern now is if government saves money but households lose purchasing power, if public revenue increases but essential services remain inadequate, and if economic indicators improve while unemployment, insecurity and hardship continue to undermine social welfare, then the reform conversation obviously cannot end with announcements of savings. It must proceed to accountability.
The Tinubu administration must understand that economic stabilisation is not synonymous with economic prosperity. A patient whose vital signs are improving is not necessarily a patient who has recovered. Similarly, an economy emerging from instability is not automatically one in which its citizens are thriving.
Before touting the achievements of the government, it must understand that the Renewed Hope Agenda must ultimately be judged by whether it renews the hope of the market woman, the civil servant, the unemployed graduate, the farmer, the teacher, the small-business owner and the millions of Nigerians whose daily struggles rarely feature in government celebrations.
It requires more than impressive budget presentations and foreign borrowing approvals. Honestly, without room for argument, it demands improved wages, productive employment, reliable electricity, affordable healthcare, accessible education, food security, transparent public spending and social protection that reaches the genuinely vulnerable.
As the blame is pushed to the ‘rubber stamp’ National Assembly, Governors, too, must account for the additional resources available to their states. Increased allocations and revenue should translate into better public services, not merely bigger government establishments and more elaborate political ceremonies, as this has gone unaccounted for.
Ultimately, prosperity is not what government says the economy has become. It is what citizens can afford, access, enjoy and experience without depending on political connections, government handouts or extraordinary personal sacrifices.
A government may celebrate and keep touting GDP growth, improving foreign reserves, rising revenue and declining headline inflation. But a mother who cannot comfortably feed her children, a graduate who cannot secure employment, a business owner who cannot meet operating costs and a pensioner who cannot afford medication will hardly find sufficient consolation in a macroeconomic presentation.
The challenge before Nigeria’s leadership is not to produce more convincing explanations of why the economy is improving. It is to make that improvement sufficiently visible in the lives of the people.
Perhaps the greatest irony of Nigeria’s prosperity narrative is that government appears increasingly confident about the economy, organised labour is increasingly dissatisfied with wages, former leaders are questioning the reforms, and the President is seeking additional billions in foreign loans.
If this is what prosperity looks like, Nigerians may reasonably wonder what economic hardship would look like under a different definition.
After all, a country cannot indefinitely ask its citizens to tighten their belts when many have already run out of trousers.
If prosperity is truly here, it should not require government spokespersons to explain it to the people. Nigerians should recognise it in their kitchens, experience it in their businesses, feel it in their salaries and see it in the opportunities available to their children.
Pending when this happens, government may continue celebrating the success of its economic reforms, while citizens continue managing the consequences. Because an economy that is recovering without making life meaningfully better for its people has not yet delivered the prosperity it promised. It has merely changed the language of hardship.
- Blaise, a journalist and PR professional, writes from Lagos and can be reached via: blaise.udunze@gmail.com.
