Should we start clapping for those behind this our unwarranted hardship, or pretend that everything is okay when it is evidently not, or remain silent in the face of absurdity, or be sworn into decisive action in choosing a credible alternative by voting out our grave diggers? These are the fundamental moral and political questions that now confront every conscientious Nigerian as the nation drifts perilously and as the 2027 general election knocks loudly on our collective conscience.
There comes a time in the life of any nation when silence becomes complicity, when pretence becomes betrayal, and when applause for failure becomes a crime against posterity. Nigeria has arrived at that critical juncture. We can no longer afford the luxury of indifference. The hardship ravaging the land is not an abstract economic theory debated in air-conditioned conference halls in Abuja; it is a lived reality, a daily torment, a brutal assault on the dignity of the average citizen. To clap for those who have engineered this hardship is to celebrate our own affliction. To pretend that all is well is to live in a delusional paradise while the roof collapses over our heads. To remain silent is to surrender our future. The only honourable path left is to be sworn into action, to interrogate the present darkness and to search, with uncompromising sincerity, for a credible alternative capable of rescuing this nation from the precipice.
For how else does one explain the profound paradox that has become the defining feature of the Nigerian economy? We are told, with bureaucratic fanfare and statistical sophistry, that the country’s Gross Domestic Product is growing on paper. We are regaled with figures of increasing foreign reserves, of improved ratings by international financial institutions, of macroeconomic stability. Yet, in stark and painful contradiction, poverty continues to multiply exponentially among the populace. The market woman in Ijero, the farmer in Ekiti, the artisan in Aba, the unemployed graduate in Uyo, none of them feels this growth. None of them eats GDP. None of them spends foreign reserves in the market. If economic growth does not translate into food on the table, into affordable healthcare, into accessible education, into disposable income for the ordinary family, then of what use is that growth? What manner of economic growth thrives only on spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations while the people who are supposed to be its beneficiaries wallow in abject penury?
This is the tragedy of voodoo economics, an economic model that enriches the state on paper while impoverishing the citizenry in reality. When the government removes subsidies without a human face, when it floats the naira without a safety net, when it imposes suffocating taxes and tariffs on a productive sector that is already comatose, it may indeed shore up its foreign reserves temporarily. But at what cost? The cost is the dehumanization of the Nigerian people, the pauperization of the middle class, the annihilation of small and medium scale enterprises, and the consignment of millions into a life of undignified survival. We have become a nation where the government boasts of saving money while the citizens can no longer afford to save their own lives.
And so we must ask, with unflinching honesty, what makes Nigeria’s GDP and foreign reserves grow on paper while the country is derisively regarded as the world poverty capital? The answer lies in the fundamental disconnect between growth and development, between accumulation by the state and prosperity for the people. What we are witnessing is growth without development, accumulation without productivity, statistics without substance. It is a classic case of jobless growth, of profitless reserves, of an economy that grows only for the benefit of a tiny, parasitic elite who have captured the state and converted it into an instrument of primitive accumulation. When the government borrows excessively to finance consumption rather than production, when it celebrates increased revenue from exorbitant taxation and not from expanded productivity, when its foreign reserves swell because it has refused to fund essential imports for industries and education, such growth is not only illusory, it is insulting.
For years, Nigerians were told that sacrifice today would guarantee prosperity tomorrow. Nigerians have sacrificed. Nigerians have endured. Nigerians have shown a level of resilience that is almost superhuman. Yet tomorrow has refused to come. And may not come under the watch of the present kleptomaniac. Instead, what we have witnessed in the past three years is a continuous descent into multidimensional poverty, a poverty that is not just about lack of money, but lack of dignity, lack of hope, lack of opportunity and unabated corruption. A poverty that manifests in children out of school, in hospitals turned to mortuaries, in youths fleeing the country in droves in the now popular japa syndrome, in families that can no longer afford one decent meal a day. This is not the Nigeria of our dreams. This is not the Nigeria that our founding fathers envisaged. This is a nation meshed in the most dehumanizing cajolery and absurdity, where citizens are told to be patient while those in power live in obscene opulence displaying sleaze funds.
Therefore, as 2027 approaches, the choice before Nigerians is not merely political; it is existential. It is a choice between continued wallowing in this abject poverty, penury and absurdity, or a conscious, deliberate search for a credible alternative. The search for a credible alternative is not about partisan sentiment or ethnic chauvinism; it is about survival. It is about finding a leadership that understands that the true measure of economic progress is not the eloquence of figures quoted at press conferences, but the happiness and well-being of the people. It is about finding a leader who understands that GDP is meaningless if it does not reduce poverty, that foreign reserves are useless if they cannot stabilize the economy to the benefit of the ordinary man, that governance is not about grandstanding but about empathy.
A credible alternative must be a leader with a proven track record of economic management that is people-centred, a leader who understands wealth creation beyond rent-seeking, a leader who has demonstrated capacity to manage a diverse economy, to create jobs, to empower the private sector, and to run an inclusive government. Nigeria needs at this hour a leader who will not see the economy from the narrow prism of fiscal accumulation but from the broader perspective of human development. We need a leadership that will prioritize production over consumption, that will invest in agriculture, manufacturing and technology, that will revamp our educational and health institutions, and that will restore dignity to the Nigerian worker and hope to the Nigerian youth.
The apologists of the current hardship will tell us that there is no alternative, that we must endure, that reforms take time. But how much time does a hungry man have? How much patience can a mother whose child cannot go to school muster? How much endurance can a graduate who has been unemployed for five years exercise? Governance is not an academic exercise in delayed gratification; it is a social contract that must deliver tangible benefits here and now, while also building for the future. A government that inflicts unbearable pain today with no credible roadmap for relief tomorrow has broken that contract.
Nigerians must therefore resist the temptation to normalize suffering under any guise. We must reject the narrative that seeks to gaslight us into believing that our suffering is a necessary sacrifice for a glorious tomorrow that never comes. We must reject the politics of intimidation, of vote-buying, of ethnic division that has kept us in this cycle of underdevelopment and marginalization.The power to change our destiny lies in our hands, and that power is most potently expressed through the ballot.
As 2027 knocks, let every Nigerian ask himself: should I clap for those behind this hardship? Should I pretend that everything is okay when it is clearly not okay but for fear of losing my source of livelihood? Should I remain silent in the face of this absurdity because of mere party loyalty or as a beneficiary of the ongoing scam? Or should I be sworn into action to choose a credible alternative for the good of my future and country? History will not be kind to those who chose silence when they should have spoken, who chose pretence when they should have confronted reality, who chose to clap when they should have condemned.
The time to act is now. The search for a credible alternative is not a luxury; it is a necessity. For in that alternative lies the hope of a Nigeria where GDP growth will mean food on the table, where foreign reserves will mean a stable naira and affordable goods, where governance will mean compassion and competence, and where being Nigerian will once again be a source of pride and not a badge of endurance.
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
