By Comr. Preye V. Tambou, National President, Society for the Welfare of Unemployed Youths of Nigeria (SWUYN)
25th May, 2026
When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy in May 2023, the decision was presented as one of the boldest economic reforms in Nigeria’s recent history. Nigerians were told the country could no longer sustain a subsidy regime that had for decades consumed trillions of naira, enriched a network of middlemen and oil marketers, encouraged corruption, distorted the economy, and weakened public finances. The message from government and many economic experts was clear: the pain would be temporary, but the long-term benefits would rescue Nigeria from fiscal collapse and open the door for national recovery.
Citizens were assured that removing subsidy would free enormous resources for development. The government would supposedly have more funds to invest in infrastructure, healthcare, education, transportation, agriculture, industrialization, social welfare, and job creation. Borrowing would reduce gradually because the fiscal burden would ease. Investors would regain confidence in the economy. Public spending would become more efficient. Nigeria would finally begin the difficult but necessary transition toward a more productive and sustainable economic system.
On paper, many of those arguments sounded logical. Even several economists who had criticized subsidy for years agreed that the policy itself was economically unsustainable and could not continue forever. However, governance is not judged merely by economic theories or policy announcements. Governance is judged by the daily experiences of citizens. It is judged by whether people can eat, work, move freely, afford transportation, run businesses, pay school fees, access healthcare, and maintain hope for the future.
This is where the greatest contradiction of the subsidy removal era has emerged.
Years after the removal of subsidy, millions of Nigerians are not asking complicated economic questions anymore. They are asking simple survival questions. If subsidy has been removed, why is suffering increasing? If trillions have supposedly been saved, why does government borrowing continue to rise? If painful sacrifices were necessary for national recovery, why are ordinary citizens seeing so little visible improvement in their daily lives? Why does the average Nigerian appear to be carrying heavier economic burdens while the political class still appears insulated from the hardship?
For many Nigerians today, life has become significantly more difficult than it was before subsidy removal. Food prices have risen dramatically. Transportation costs have become unbearable for workers, students, traders, and families. Small businesses are collapsing under rising operating costs. Electricity remains unstable, forcing millions to depend on expensive fuel and diesel generators. Rent continues to increase. Healthcare is becoming unaffordable for many families. School fees are rising. Inflation has weakened the purchasing power of salaries and incomes. Even many citizens who once considered themselves comfortably middle class are now struggling silently under mounting economic pressure.
The pain is visible everywhere across the country. It is visible in markets where traders and customers argue daily over rising prices. It is visible in the growing frustration among graduates without jobs. It is visible in the increasing desperation pushing many young Nigerians toward migration. It is visible in the emotional exhaustion of parents trying to feed families under worsening economic conditions. It is visible in the collapse of countless small and medium-scale businesses that can no longer cope with the combined pressure of inflation, unstable power supply, high transportation costs, and declining consumer purchasing power.
One of the major reasons subsidy removal produced such widespread hardship is because Nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on fuel. Fuel is not simply a commodity within the Nigerian economy; it is one of the foundations upon which economic activity operates. Transportation depends on fuel. Food distribution depends on fuel. Businesses depend on fuel for electricity generation. Farmers depend on fuel for transportation and production. Manufacturers depend on fuel and energy to operate machinery and logistics networks. Once fuel prices increased sharply, the effects spread rapidly through every sector of the economy.
The situation became even worse because subsidy removal happened almost simultaneously with the floating of the naira. Nigeria is heavily dependent on imports, including machinery, medicine, industrial materials, refined petroleum components, technology, and several consumer goods. As the naira weakened significantly against foreign currencies, imported goods became more expensive almost immediately. Inflation accelerated aggressively. Businesses that relied on imported inputs faced enormous operational costs. The average Nigerian suddenly faced the double burden of rising fuel costs and a rapidly depreciating currency.
What made the crisis more painful for citizens was not only the hardship itself, but the feeling that the suffering was not being matched by visible improvements in governance or public welfare. Nigerians were told subsidy removal would reduce fiscal pressure and dependence on debt, yet borrowing has continued aggressively. Citizens hear regular announcements about new loans, rising debt profiles, and budget deficits. Naturally, people began asking difficult but legitimate questions. If subsidy savings exist, where exactly are those funds going? Why are public hospitals still struggling? Why are public universities still facing severe challenges? Why does electricity remain unstable? Why are roads still poor in many parts of the country? Why are wages not keeping pace with inflation? Why does governance still appear expensive while citizens are being told to endure sacrifice for national recovery?
These questions are not unreasonable. Nigerians are not demanding luxury from government. They are demanding evidence. Evidence that their suffering has purpose. Evidence that sacrifice is producing measurable results. Evidence that the burden being placed on citizens is not simply financing another cycle of political waste and elite privilege.
One of the greatest dangers facing the country today is the widening disconnect between the realities of ordinary Nigerians and the lifestyle of many within the political class. Across the country, citizens see images of large political convoys, extravagant government spending, inflated contracts, luxurious lifestyles among public officials, and an expanding political patronage system. Many Nigerians feel that while they are being asked to tighten their belts daily, those in power continue to operate within a different economic reality entirely.
This perception creates deep resentment because sacrifice in any society becomes difficult to sustain when it appears unequal. Citizens can endure temporary hardship if they believe leaders are also making sacrifices and if they can see transparency, accountability, and measurable progress, but when hardship appears concentrated among ordinary people while political elites remain comfortable, reforms begin to lose moral legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
The anger and frustration growing across Nigeria today are therefore not simply reactions to fuel prices or inflation alone. They are also reactions to a deeper feeling of exclusion, inequality, and distrust. Many citizens no longer feel connected to the promises of governance. Millions increasingly feel abandoned inside their own country.
This is why the current economic crisis carries dangers beyond economics alone. The issue is becoming psychological, social, and political. A country where millions of citizens are unemployed, frustrated, hungry, and hopeless cannot remain indefinitely stable. Hopelessness is one of the most dangerous conditions any society can face because once people completely lose faith in institutions, leadership, and the possibility of improvement, instability begins to grow quietly beneath the surface.
Already, signs of deep national exhaustion are visible. Crime risks are increasing. Migration desperation is growing among youths. Mental and emotional pressure is rising across families and communities. Public trust in institutions continues to weaken. The frustration within the country is no longer limited to opposition politicians or activists. It is increasingly visible among ordinary citizens who simply want to survive with dignity.
As conversations around the 2027 elections continue to intensify, this economic reality will inevitably shape the political atmosphere. The next election cycle may become more than a contest between parties or politicians. It may become a referendum on hardship, governance, accountability, and economic survival. Millions of Nigerians are entering this political season wounded economically and emotionally. Campaigns, slogans, and political propaganda may not easily erase the daily realities citizens are experiencing.
However, amid this frustration, Nigerians must also be careful not to allow desperation to push the country toward destructive choices. Economic hardship can easily become fertile ground for political manipulation. Politicians may attempt to exploit ethnic divisions, religious sentiments, regional grievances, and social frustration for electoral advantage. History repeatedly shows that in many political conflicts, the poor often become the foot soldiers of elite political battles while the powerful remain protected from the consequences.
This is why citizens must become more politically conscious and issue-driven as the country approaches another election cycle. Nigerians must move beyond emotional politics, tribal politics, religious manipulation, and blind party loyalty. The country has paid heavily for years of voting based on sentiments rather than competence and accountability. Citizens must begin asking more serious questions about leadership capacity, economic understanding, integrity, institutional reforms, and measurable performance.Vote-buying also remains one of the greatest threats to democratic accountability in Nigeria. Poverty has made many citizens vulnerable to temporary political handouts during elections. Bags of rice, small amounts of cash, and short-term empowerment promises are often used to purchase political loyalty, yet after elections, the same citizens frequently return to unemployment, insecurity, inflation, and neglect. Selling votes may temporarily relieve hunger for a day, but it often prolongs suffering for years by empowering leaders who feel little accountability toward the people.
At the same time, citizens must continue demanding accountability peacefully and democratically. Democracy requires active participation, not silence. Nigerians have constitutional rights to speak, organize, advocate, protest peacefully, question leadership, and demand transparency. Peaceful civic engagement remains one of the strongest tools available to citizens seeking national reform.
It is also important to recognize that Nigeria’s problems did not begin with one administration alone. The country’s economic and institutional weaknesses are products of many years of policy inconsistency, corruption, structural inefficiency, weak institutions, excessive dependence on oil revenue, import dependency, and governance failures across multiple administrations. However, acknowledging historical problems does not remove the responsibility of present leadership to provide credible solutions and visible progress.
Ultimately, the deeper issue facing Nigeria may not simply be subsidy removal itself. Many experts still believe subsidy removal was inevitable. The greater problem is that painful economic reform was introduced within a system where structural corruption, political waste, weak institutions, poor productivity, and governance inefficiency remain largely unresolved. Removing subsidy without aggressively fixing those underlying structural problems meant ordinary citizens absorbed the shock directly while the larger governance culture appeared mostly unchanged.
Nigeria cannot sustainably build prosperity through endless borrowing, rising inflation, political excess, and economic dependency. Real recovery requires more than speeches and policy announcements. It requires courageous structural reforms that are transparent, measurable, and people-centered. The cost of governance must reduce visibly. Political waste and inflated public spending must be addressed seriously. Investments in agriculture, refining, manufacturing, electricity, transportation, and industrialization must become more aggressive and practical. Anti-corruption efforts must become credible and consistent rather than selective or symbolic. Job creation must move beyond political rhetoric into measurable economic expansion capable of absorbing millions of unemployed youths.
Most importantly, leadership must reconnect morally and psychologically with the people. Citizens must feel that government understands the depth of the hardship they are enduring. They must see evidence that public sacrifice is not meaningless. They must believe the future can still become better through responsible governance and collective national effort.
The Nigerian people are not demanding perfection. They are demanding sincerity, accountability, competence, and visible results. They are demanding a country where hard work still carries meaning, where survival does not consume every waking moment, and where leadership reflects genuine concern for the lives of ordinary citizens.
Subsidy removal alone was never going to save Nigeria. Removing corruption, waste, institutional failure, economic dependency, elite irresponsibility, and governance inefficiency is the real national assignment. Without confronting those deeper structural problems honestly, the country risks continuing along a dangerous path where citizens hear endless promises of reform while experiencing deeper poverty, widening inequality, growing frustration, and shrinking hope.
History has repeatedly shown that no nation remains truly stable when millions of its citizens are merely surviving instead of genuinely living.
