By The Merit Newspaper Editorial Board
Nigeria is not a poor country. It is not a failed state. It is not broke. What is undeniably broke, however, are Nigerians — exhausted by policies that look impressive on paper but punishing in daily life.
Across the country, markets are open, banks are liquid, oil still flows, budgets are passed, and government revenues continue to grow in nominal terms. Yet, the average Nigerian wakes up each day poorer than the day before. This paradox defines Nigeria’s current reality: a resource-rich nation presiding over a financially strangled population.
In recent years, the federal government has consistently defended tough economic reforms — fuel subsidy removal, foreign exchange liberalisation, tax expansion, and public sector cost-cutting — as necessary sacrifices for long-term stability. While the logic of reform may be sound, the human cost has been staggering, and the promised relief remains distant for millions.
Food prices have tripled in many homes. Transportation costs have become a daily negotiation with hardship. Rent, healthcare, and school fees are now luxuries rather than essentials. Small businesses are shutting down not because Nigerians are lazy or unproductive, but because operating costs have swallowed profit margins entirely.
Yet, government figures often paint a different picture.
Nigeria’s debt profile is expanding, but so is government spending. Public office holders continue to travel, build, commission, and campaign with confidence. Convoys still roar through potholed roads. New government houses rise while citizens struggle to pay electricity bills for homes that barely receive power.
This disconnect fuels a growing public frustration: if Nigeria is broke, why does governance still look expensive?
The truth is uncomfortable. Nigeria’s problem is not the absence of money but the absence of equity, prioritisation, and empathy in economic management. Wealth circulates within government structures and political elites, while citizens are asked to “endure” endlessly, with little clarity on when relief will arrive.
Even social intervention programmes, designed to cushion the effects of reforms, often fail to reach the most vulnerable. Many are poorly implemented, politicised, or lost in bureaucratic bottlenecks. The market woman in Ogbomosho, the artisan in Aba, the farmer in Kebbi, and the commercial driver in Lagos feel no measurable impact of these interventions.
READ ALSO:Kano Billboards Signal Early Battle for 2027
Economic reforms without social protection are not reforms; they are experiments on human lives.
No nation can tax its way out of poverty, nor can it reform itself into prosperity while its people are hungry, angry, and hopeless. History has shown repeatedly that when citizens are pushed too far, the cost of instability far outweighs the cost of compassion.
Nigeria does not need policy explanations alone; it needs visible sacrifices from leadership. It needs governance that reduces the cost of running the state, not the cost of living for the people. It needs leaders who understand that patience cannot be demanded forever from empty stomachs.
As 2027 approaches, political billboards may fill the streets with smiling faces and lofty promises, but Nigerians are increasingly voting with their lived experiences. No slogan can erase the memory of hardship. No campaign can succeed where hunger persists.
If Nigeria must move forward, the starting point is simple but profound: put Nigerians at the centre of economic decisions, not at the receiving end of their consequences.
READ ALSO:Atiku’s Son Defects to APC, Father Reacts
Until then, the truth remains clear and unavoidable — Nigeria is not broke. Nigerians are.
