By Nnaoke Ufere, PhD*
The Tinubu administration’s claim that the economy will soon improve and life will get better for Nigerians is not a serious forecast. It is magical wishcasting, detached from the realities on the ground.
By contrast, more grounded economic models continue to project a far grimmer outlook. My robust forecasts still point to prolonged hardship, deepening poverty, and worsening conditions well into the foreseeable future unless there is a decisive shift in the administration’s direction, strategy, and execution. For a detailed scenario, see the analysis “Nigeria 2026: The Year All Hell Breaks Loose” herehttps://africanmind.org/nigeria-2026-the-year-all-hell-breaks-loose/
Still, the government continues to double down on empty optimism. Tinubu’s minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Wale Edun, assures us that Nigeria will grow steadily in the long run, targeting 7 percent per annum. But as John Maynard Keynes famously said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” At this rate, that may be the only forecast Edun gets right.
This promise of future economic nirvana is not new. It is a recycled ploy long used by desperate politicians to sell false hope and distract a suffering population from its present misery. It offers not a real solution, but an illusion of prosperity that will never arrive.
Does his promise sound familiar?
Of course, yes. Remember late President Buhari’s magical thinking on the economy and insecurity when he repeatedly insisted that things were improving, even as inflation soared, the naira collapsed, and terrorists overran communities?
President Tinubu is following the same script, offering false assurances, dismissing present hardships, and pretending that progress is just around the corner, while the country sinks deeper into crisis.
On May 22, 2025, Tinubu declared, “Our economic reforms are working.” A week later, he insisted Nigeria was “on course.” By June 1, he was begging, “Be patient with me.” These are not real policies; they are empty slogans designed to conceal the administration’s lack of strategy and direction.
The ruling APC amplified the illusion. In June, its governors praised Tinubu’s “bold” reforms for showing “early signs of recovery.” But the illusion crumbled when APC spokesman Felix Morka was pressed for answers. At the party’s Abuja secretariat, Morka admitted:
“I don’t know when Tinubu’s policies will start yielding results… The child is crawling. Now, I don’t know what age. I can’t say.”
That confession stripped the mask from the scam. Behind all the rhetoric lies uncertainty, confusion, and empty promises. This lack of strategic clarity from the ruling party is not just rhetorical; it is backed by hard evidence.
Economic data confirms what millions of Nigerians already know: Tinubu’s reforms are not working. Conditions are not improving; they are deteriorating. The daily anomie endured by millions reflects a deepening crisis, not a path to recovery.
IMF figures show that extreme poverty has increased by 24 percent during Tinubu’s two years in office. VerivAfrica reports that the number of food-insecure Nigerians has surged from 66 million under Buhari to 100 million under Tinubu. With average food inflation near 40 percent, and transport and fuel costs climbing, poverty reduction remains out of reach as hunger continues to spread.
Public sentiment mirrors these grim realities. The January 2025 Inflation Expectations Survey carried out by the Central Bank of Nigeria found that over 80 percent of households and firms perceived inflation as high, underscoring deep skepticism of the National Bureau of Statistics’ official June headline rate of about 22 percent. The cost of living continues to rise, basic services are deteriorating, and purchasing power remains severely eroded.
To be fare to the president, economic growth now hovers around 3.4 percent, however, the slight uptick is barely enough to keep pace with population growth and inflation. As a result, real per capita incomes are declining.
Tinubu’s debt-fueled economic strategy has only compounded the crisis. Nigeria’s public debt rose by over 22 percent in one year, reaching ₦149 trillion in the first quarter of 2025.
A recent GDP rebasing cosmetically reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio to 39.4 percent. However, the nominal debt burden continues to grow, placing a heavy strain on government finances.
To make matters worse, the 2025 budget reflects no credible path out of this crisis. It projects a ₦13.8 trillion deficit, roughly 3.9 percent of GDP, based on optimistic oil production and price assumptions that are already proving shaky.
These deficits are not financing economic recovery, infrastructure or job creation. Instead, they are largely consumed by a bloated, over-centralized federal bureaucracy, interest payments, fraud, and unaccountable spending.
All this reveals a troubling pattern. What Tinubu is selling is not reform but a calculated distraction. The playbook is predictable: wreck the economy, call the pain a necessary sacrifice, then beg for time while scheming for re-election. It is deception dressed up as strategy.
To reinforce this illusion, Tinubu’s propaganda team now chants a familiar line: “Let the policies work.” “Things will soon improve.” But this is, in a word, preposterous. There is no coherent plan, no serious understanding of the crisis, and no competence to solve it.
This false sense of progress reminds me of an old joke. An optimist falls from the 25th floor of the Abuja World Trade Centre 2. As he passes each floor on the way down, he keeps saying, “So far, so good.” But we all know what happens when he finally hits the ground.
In much the same way, Tinubu’s economy is in a rapid and uncontrolled free fall, spiraling deeper into a crisis entirely of his administration’s making. The soaring inflation, mass unemployment, and collapsing productivity we now face are not accidents. They are the direct and avoidable consequences of reckless decisions, policy blunders, and a dangerous refusal to course-correct.
Rather than acknowledge this reality, Tinubu and his allies attempt to argue that the economy had to be destroyed in order to be fixed, comparing their approach to tearing down a dilapidated house before rebuilding it. But this narrative is not only misleading, it is intellectually bankrupt.
This flawed logic is not new. The French economist Frédéric Bastiat exposed it in his 1850 parable of the broken window. He demonstrated that destruction does not benefit the economy because it ignores the unseen cost — what could have been done with those same resources if the destruction had not occurred. This mistaken belief, now known as the broken window fallacy, falsely treats loss as economic progress.
And this is precisely the fallacy Tinubu is committing. By rationalizing economic collapse as a form of renewal, he ignores the irreversible damage being done: lost jobs, shuttered businesses, eroded savings, and deepening poverty. The suffering is not a pathway to recovery. It is a consequence of poor planning, erratic policies, and a failure to grasp the fundamentals of sound economic management.
The truth is simple. You do not burn down a house to fix a leaking roof. You fix the leak. Likewise, you do not wreck an economy to claim you are rebuilding it. Bastiat’s lesson is clear: real progress comes not from destruction, but from productive investment, strategic reform, and accountable leadership — none of which Tinubu has demonstrated.
History offers cautionary examples.
In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe’s disastrous economic policies triggered hyperinflation and mass unemployment, reducing millions to extreme poverty and forcing a mass exodus.
In Argentina, repeated cycles of debt crises and inflation, driven by the same political elites, wiped out savings, destabilized the currency, and shattered investor confidence.
In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro’s regime deepened economic ruin through reckless monetary policy and denial of reality, resulting in severe food shortages, mass migration, and near-total economic collapse.
In Pakistan, repeated IMF bailouts and fiscal mismanagement by successive governments led to chronic inflation, currency devaluation, energy blackouts, and widespread social unrest.
In Greece, years of overspending followed by harsh austerity imposed by the same political class pushed the country into a deep recession, with unemployment soaring and public services decimated.
Like these regimes, Tinubu’s administration refuses to accept responsibility or change course, even as conditions worsen and public hardship intensifies.
Making matters even worse, President Tinubu has directed the National Bureau of Statistics to rebase key indicators like inflation and unemployment, distorting the data to support a collapsing narrative. This isn’t reform; it is manipulation. When reality contradicts the script, his response is not to adjust policy, but to rewrite the facts.
History offers clear warnings. Countries like Greece and Argentina tampered with economic data to mask dysfunction, enabling reckless policies that ultimately triggered severe financial crises. Nigeria is now walking a similar path.
As economist John Maynard Keynes once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” Tinubu, by contrast, changes the facts instead.
All of this underscores a deeper failure. This government has no grip on Nigeria’s structural crisis and no path forward. What the administration repeatedly fails to comprehend is the complex nature of the Nigerian economy, where exogenous (external) factors and endogenous (internal) economic, social, and political forces are deeply interconnected and mutually reinforcing in a recurring pattern.
Yet the policy responses remain fragmented and reactive. Each problem is treated in isolation, as if inflation, unemployment, and currency collapse exist in separate silos. In doing so, the government falls into what can be called the balloon effect: squeeze the economy at one end, and pressure simply reemerges elsewhere.
Interest rates are raised to fight inflation, but this simultaneously crushes access to credit, stifles job creation, and deepens poverty. At the same time, the naira is floated without adequate buffers, causing steep depreciation that fuels imported inflation and erodes household purchasing power.
These contradictory policy interventions cancel each other out, exposing an administration trapped in improvisation rather than guided by a coherent economic strategy.
What Nigeria urgently needs is a systems approach, one that aligns monetary, fiscal, and structural reforms to address root causes instead of merely treating symptoms. Without such coordination, the country will remain locked in a cycle of self-inflicted instability.
As I’ve written before, the elephant in the room is the fat, monstrous Wendigo, a creature from Algonquian mythology known for its insatiable hunger, growing ever larger the more it consumes. In our case, that monster is the federal government, endlessly devouring resources, demanding more sacrifices, yet never satisfied and never accountable. It must be strategically, carefully, and equitably dismantled and decentralized if the nation is ever to be free.
It’s not enough to restructure. Restructuring without changing leadership is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, cosmetic, futile, and ultimately destructive. Real transformation demands more than shifting the structure; it requires removing those who have repeatedly abused it. Until leadership changes, the cycle of failure will continue. If we are serious about building a nation that truly serves its people, we must begin with the kind of leadership this country has never had: honest, competent, and accountable.
Looking ahead, the stakes are immense. If Nigeria makes it to 2027 in one piece, it must elect leaders with the intellect, vision, competence, courage, and integrity to set a new direction. Without such leadership, the Nigerian ship of state risks not just drifting aimlessly but sinking with 233 million people onboard, while the elites escape in their private rescue yachts.
In the meantime, Nigerians must remain vigilant. Do not let Tinubu deceive you again. Things are not improving because they cannot under this administration.
2027 must not become a repeat of 2023.
*About the author
Nnaoke Ufere is a leading voice in African public thought and policy. He writes a weekly opinion column for the African Mind Journal, where his work shapes national conversations on leadership, governance, and reform. A Harvard alumnus and PhD holder in Strategic Management from Case Western Reserve University, Ufere is an influential author, public intellectual, and global development analyst whose insights on U.S.-Africa relations and institutional accountability continue to challenge the status quo and inspire change.
