Nigeria has entered an interesting phase in its economic and political life. The government has increasingly persuasive numbers with which to make the case that the economy is moving in the right direction, while millions of Nigerians are still making daily calculations about what they can afford to buy, postpone or do without. At the same time, the political class is already looking beyond the present to the alliances, ambitions and battles that will shape 2027.
That combination deserves more than the usual argument over whether the economy is “working” or “failing.” Both descriptions are too convenient.
The numbers matter. Stronger GDP growth matters. Rising foreign reserves matter. Higher government revenues matter. They can indicate that some of the difficult economic decisions taken over the past few years are beginning to produce results. It would be intellectually dishonest to dismiss those developments simply because life remains difficult for many households.
But it would be equally dishonest to suggest that improving macroeconomic indicators have already translated into broad prosperity.
For most Nigerians, the economy is not encountered in a quarterly report. It is encountered at the filling station, in the market, at the pharmacy, in the classroom and at the electricity meter. It is the trader deciding whether to replace stock or use the money to feed the family. It is the parent wondering how to keep up with school expenses while food prices continue to consume a larger share of household income. It is the manufacturer calculating whether producing locally still makes sense after paying for diesel, transport, security and repairs.
That is the uncomfortable reality behind the encouraging statistics: an economy can be recovering without people yet feeling recovered.
The distinction is especially important when discussing the reforms of the present administration.
The removal of the petrol subsidy was not an indefensible policy. Nigeria had spent years operating a system that absorbed enormous public resources while creating distortions and opportunities for arbitrage. Eventually, the country had to confront the cost of pretending that the arrangement could continue indefinitely.
But acknowledging the need for reform does not require pretending that the consequences were painless.
For millions of Nigerians, subsidy removal was experienced not as a fiscal adjustment but as a sharp increase in the cost of moving around, transporting goods and getting food to the table. The policy may have been necessary, but necessity does not make its social consequences irrelevant.
That is where government must do more than present the destination it hopes to reach. Nigerians need to know what is happening along the road.
If subsidy savings and stronger government revenues are creating additional fiscal space, citizens are entitled to ask what that space is producing. They should be able to see the connection between the sacrifices being demanded from them and the investments being made on their behalf.
This is not a demand for instant transformation. No serious person expects a country with Nigeria’s accumulated problems to repair decades of neglect in a few budget cycles. But there has to be evidence of movement.
A road should eventually become a road. A hospital should become a place where people can receive treatment without first having to solve a financial puzzle. Electricity should become increasingly reliable rather than remaining another major expense that businesses and households are forced to provide for themselves.
And when money intended for vulnerable citizens is poorly accounted for, the damage goes beyond the missing funds themselves.
It damages trust.
That may be one of the most expensive things a government can lose.
A citizen who is already struggling will find it difficult to accept the argument that everyone must sacrifice for the country when public resources continue to disappear into questionable transactions, weak oversight and opaque programmes. The problem is not simply that money may have been lost. It is that every revelation of poor accountability makes legitimate economic reforms harder to defend.
People begin to wonder whether the hardship they are being asked to endure is genuinely necessary or whether they are simply being asked to carry the consequences of a system in which somebody else always seems to escape the bill.
That question will become increasingly important as 2027 approaches.
The government will point to economic indicators and argue that Nigeria is finally beginning to turn a difficult corner. Its opponents will point to food prices, declining purchasing power and the pressure on households and businesses and argue that the reforms have failed.
Neither side should be allowed to reduce the argument to a slogan.
The government cannot reasonably expect Nigerians to celebrate GDP growth while ignoring what inflation has done to household budgets. At the same time, opposition politicians cannot honestly present the present hardship as though it began with the current administration or suggest that replacing one president will somehow erase the structural weaknesses accumulated over decades.
Nigeria’s economic problems are older than the current political cycle. So are its institutional weaknesses, infrastructure deficits, electricity problems, insecurity, dependence on oil revenue and failures of public accountability.
Whoever eventually governs after 2027 will inherit all of them.
That is why the election should be an opportunity for a more serious economic conversation than the country usually gets during campaigns.
Politicians should be asked what they intend to do about production, jobs, electricity, infrastructure, public finances and the cost of doing business. They should explain how they will make government more accountable and how they intend to ensure that public money reaches the people and projects for which it was approved.
And Nigerians should ask the government some equally uncomfortable questions.
If the economy is growing, where are the productive jobs that growth should create?
If revenues are increasing, what is becoming better in the lives of citizens?
If subsidy savings are available, how much is being invested in infrastructure and productive capacity rather than simply absorbed into recurrent spending?
If billions are allocated to social programmes, who is independently checking where the money ends up?
These are not opposition questions. They are citizenship questions.
There is another point that deserves to be made before the political temperature rises further: economic hardship does not automatically prove that every reform is wrong. Nigeria cannot continue consuming more than it produces, borrowing indefinitely, maintaining costly distortions or postponing difficult decisions simply because reform is uncomfortable.
Someone eventually pays for those choices.
The issue is whether the burden is being shared fairly and whether today’s sacrifices are building something better for tomorrow.
That is where the government will ultimately be judged.
Not by how impressive a presentation looks in Abuja, and not by whether the opposition can produce a more alarming headline. Nigerians will judge the reforms by what happens in their own lives. Can a salary buy more? Can a business produce at a competitive cost? Can a young person find productive work without knowing somebody in government? Can a family obtain decent healthcare without being financially devastated by an illness?
Those are the numbers that matter to people who do not attend economic conferences.
Nigeria may well be moving in the right direction in some important respects. The government is entitled to make that case. But it must also recognise that economic recovery is not complete simply because the national ledger looks healthier.
The final measure will be whether that improvement travels from the spreadsheet to the street.
Nigeria may well be moving in the right direction in some important respects, and the government is entitled to make that case. But economic recovery is not complete because the national accounts look healthier. The real proof will come when the improvement begins to show up in household budgets, in the cost of running a business, in the quality of public services and in the opportunities available to people who have spent years being told to endure.
That is the point the political class should not lose sight of as 2027 approaches. There will be plenty of arguments over who deserves to remain in power and who should replace them. There will be statistics to defend, statistics to attack and promises to make.
But for the Nigerian who goes to the market tomorrow morning, the argument is much simpler: is life becoming more affordable, or are we simply being told that it will eventually become so?
That is the answer Nigerians should demand before they decide who gets their vote.
As 2027 approaches, the political class will spend enormous energy deciding who should occupy Aso Rock next.
The country should spend at least as much energy asking what that person will actually do with it.
Stephanie Shaakaa shaakaastephanie02@gmail.com
08034861434
