The earnestness with which many opposition politicians and the disaffected conclave of commentariat (not the actual mass of hungry Nigerians that are more with the real but mundane issues of bread and butter) looked forward to the mid-term performance evaluation of the Bola Tinubu administration gave the impression that he has completed his first if not two terms in office.

The matter was accorded an apocalyptic air and framed as some end-time judgement to send the President and his cohort to a paradise of a much-influential second term or a truncated first term of political damnation. This was the imagined eschatology of a presidency still at infancy. They could not wait to see its end, forcefully demanding appraisals from known critics just after a few months, even when the man at the centre of the story has in fact just turned the bend into the journey of his third year as president only last week, precisely on May 29, 2025. 

His two years have been packed full with so many activities and controversies, not a few of which were contrived to derail his administration. Consider the imputation that he is on a mission to build a one-party state and anyone could justifiably come to the conclusion that he has spent two decades and not two years in office. That he has come this far is itself a political miracle and testament in resilience, political sagacity and savoir faire. Bola Tinubu was not given a cat in hell’s chance to make it through the first few months given the range and reach of the opposition against him after he was declared winner of the 2023 election. Let’s leave for now the tortuous obstacle test he had to undergo even to win his party’s ticket, and after he got it, the formidable opposition and apathy of his predecessor whose emergence as president he had played a key role, perhaps the most consequential role, in making a reality. 

Only a masochist would deny that the last 24 months have taken the worst toll on Nigerians and made all but a few of us economically poorer, and the most vulnerable destitute, owing to Tinubu’s decision (long overdue most clear-eyed analysts agree) to terminate the regime of criminal subsidy on petrol, the unification of the exchange rate and the concomitant devaluation of the naira and elimination of arbitrage. The net effect of this, immediate in its devastation, was inflation which at about 24 per cent today represents a significant drop from about 38 per cent as at the end of 2024. It has been on a very slow but gradual slide down since then. The other side of the economic reform and new policy direction story of the administration is that it has freed funds, mostly foreign currencies, previously stolen by middle men posing as fuel importers to the 36 states, their governors and minister, in the case of the FCT. 

Each of these now earn about three times or more of what they once received as allocation, the monthly ritual of fiscal robbery of Peter to pay Paul that has made ours a contraption on life support that was misnamed a federation held together by convenience and greed. Like citizens of other countries, Nigerians need and deserve all the subsidies that they can get but the mis-managers called leaders have swallowed all the meat, leaving the children of butchers with nothing but bones to gnaw at the feet of their compatriots turned taskmasters. When the dust raised by the removal of these vital means of survival finally settle and the basis of what should be our social contract as citizens are recognised for what they are (and we hope that won’t be long in coming any more), Nigerians can expect and demand subsidies on the goods and services they consume, especially on those they produce. They deserve it like all other people of the world but not when a few of them scrape out the juicy entrails in their name and leave them with husks. 

In sheer economic terms, Nigerians are worse off today than they were two years ago. But the paradox of it is that we were not actually richer two or even twenty-five years ago. But we spent what we did not have including the patrimony of our children. Now is the time to pay so we do not entirely mortgage ours, and worse yet, the future of our children. The pain of the last two years is part of the crucible we must pass through, the price we must all pay for the profligate ineptitude and corruption of leaders who placed populism above responsibility. And the signs are there that we are turning the corner, if we delay gratification, stay the course and see this through. This should be the job of the opposition who should hold the feet of the government to the fire. They are rather driven by the twin motive of hate for losing power in 2023 and the ambition to win or reclaim power in 2027, if not before. 

They are the ones defecting from parties, forming coalitions even when not coalescing, threatening retribution and straining at every opportunity to find faults disguised as criticism. Who are those reminding Tinubu that the hard-won fight to grant the LGAs financial autonomy is still stalled by governors scrambling to join APC? That the funds freed from subsidy removal are trapped with governors who have chosen to pauperise their people? That the idea of a state-managed police system, a cornerstone of the fight against insecurity supported by all the governors except the one who most needs it, is still on the drawing board? Who would tell Babagana Zulum that he abets insecurity in Borno State with his thoughtless pacification of so-called repentant terrorists? 

There have been disappointments, missteps and outright failures which one will elaborate on in the weeks ahead. By all major indices, however, the present government has not only been very purposeful, it has been far more so compared to its predecessor. The state of our “federation” is in two years improving. The government’s albatross is the microeconomy. Food inflation is a killer and many are struggling hard and dependent on others for their everyday needs. The macroeconomic auguries are favourable, as those who should know have attested. Tinubu has achieved quite a significant bit in terms of relevant policy push out in the key areas of education (NELFUND, NASENI, TVET), agriculture, security, the economy and even geo-politics, despite the recent setback in the usual parts of the North-West, North-Central and North-East. The South-East is calming down, is not all about Obidients and needs to be properly engaged. 

But Government must move fast to meet the basic needs of the long-suffering and undemanding Nigerians.