In today’s Nigeria, survival has become an extreme sport, and the vehicle of that survival—quite literally—is a private car now moonlighting as a commercial taxi. From naval officers to bankers, marketers to construction workers, Nigerians are turning their once-prized vehicles into lifelines. If this isn’t a national emergency, then what is?
When sleek Sport Utility Vehicles begin ferrying passengers at Lagos bus stops not as an act of kindness but as a means of economic rescue, the nation should collectively hang its head in shame. What we see playing out across the country is not innovation—it is desperation masquerading as entrepreneurship.
This is not the Nigeria we were promised.
Once symbols of upward mobility, private vehicles are now the last thread holding together what’s left of the middle class. The image of a naval officer in uniform, reduced to hustling for N700 fares, or a senior executive calculating fuel costs by the litre just to break even, speaks volumes about a government that has failed to plan, failed to cushion, and worst of all, failed to care.
It is not only shameful—it is criminal—that a country endowed with oil, human capital, and a youthful workforce continues to trap its citizens in a spiral of economic hardship. What is the purpose of governance if a father of four must turn his family’s car into a mobile bus to buy garri? Where is the dignity of labour when university graduates are forced to moonlight as roadside cabbies just to afford bread?
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, inflation has skyrocketed to 24.23% as of March 2025, with the Consumer Price Index hitting 117.34. The World Bank has warned, with chilling finality, that 60% of Nigerians now live in financial distress. The International Monetary Fund predicts a harrowing 26.5% average inflation rate in 2025, with a climb to a jaw-dropping 37% in 2026. These are not mere statistics; these are death sentences for millions of households.
And yet, our leaders peddle optimism as though it were a panacea. They play the violin while Rome burns. They live in air-conditioned bubbles while citizens roast in the heat of grinding poverty. They announce fiscal reforms and subsidy removals with straight faces, never bothering to build safety nets. Instead of policy, we get propaganda. Instead of relief, we get rhetoric.
The removal of fuel subsidies may have been economically “necessary” in theory, but the utter lack of foresight and compassion in its implementation has weaponized poverty. Overnight, the price of petrol more than tripled, triggering a domino effect that has seen transportation, food, and rent spiral beyond the reach of ordinary Nigerians. In a country where the minimum wage is a pitiful N30,000—or even the newly proposed N70,000—the cost of a bag of rice sitting at over N90,000 is nothing short of a mockery.
When a once-proud technician like Dominion Idonijie must abandon his pride to become a part-time taxi driver just to put food on the table, the state has failed him. When Basil Agwude, an executive at a multinational firm, must charge N1,000 per passenger daily to cushion fuel expenses, then clearly, the centre cannot hold.
The sheer absurdity of this new normal is a damning indictment of leadership. Nigerians are not lazy. They are not weak. They are survivors. But no nation should function on the sweat of survival alone. A system that drives educated professionals to hawk rides at bus stops is not functional—it is dystopian.
What we are witnessing is a society slipping through the cracks of failed economic policies and ill-conceived reforms. The so-called “executive hustlers” are not to be celebrated—they are to be pitied, and more importantly, they are to be rescued. Their hustle is not a sign of a thriving informal sector; it is a symptom of a crumbling formal one.
Public officeholders continue to earn bloated salaries and allowances while workers take on double lives to feed their children. The Nigerian Senate recently proposed buying new SUVs worth billions, while civil servants moonlight as taxi drivers. Is this not daylight robbery masquerading as leadership?
Enough is enough.
President Bola Tinubu’s administration must wake up from its slumber and confront the tsunami of hardship sweeping through the nation. Social safety nets must be prioritized. Fuel prices must be addressed with practical subsidies, even if temporary. Inflation must be tamed through responsible monetary policy, and job creation must move from the pages of campaign manifestos to the streets of real life.
More importantly, the government must stop treating survival tactics as progress. Nigeria does not need more hustlers—it needs more leaders, more jobs, more justice.
Until then, Nigerians will continue to turn their homes into warehouses, their bedrooms into boutiques, and their cars into commuter buses. But how long can a country run on fumes?
The engine of this nation is overheating, and without immediate and decisive action, it may soon sputter to a halt. And when that happens, no luxury SUV—no matter how fast or sleek—will be able to outrun the consequences.
