“The Tinubu administration has destroyed Nigeria’s economy, compromised its security, impoverished its people, and eroded its democratic institutions…”
By Mohammed Bello Doka
Three years ago, Bola Ahmed Tinubu stood before the nation and promised a renewed hope. Today, that hope has curdled into despair.
What Nigerians have witnessed instead is an administration defined by economic catastrophe, escalating insecurity, a staggering poverty crisis, and a disturbing refusal to accept responsibility.
The Tinubu administration has not just failed; it has actively dismantled the fragile foundations of the Nigerian state, leaving a trail of broken promises and untold suffering.
After May 29, 2027, Tinubu and his co-travellers must not be allowed to remain a day longer, for every additional hour in power will require a decade to rebuild.
The most devastating indictment of this administration is the unprecedented economic crisis it has engineered. When Tinubu assumed office, he promised that the removal of the fuel subsidy would save trillions of naira and free up resources for development.
Instead, Nigerians have been plunged into the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
While the administration now points to a projected decline in inflation, projecting it could fall below ten percent in 2026, this offers cold comfort to citizens who have watched food prices spiral out of control.
The price of a kilo of rice has nearly quadrupled since May 2023, while wages have remained stagnant . Even as official figures suggest inflation has moderated, millions of Nigerians still struggle to afford basic sustenance.
The administration has attempted to claim credit for a reduction in the unemployment rate, but this is a statistical sleight of hand. The National Bureau of Statistics adopted a revised methodology aligned with International Labour Organisation guidelines in 2023, fundamentally changing how unemployment is measured .
Under the old methodology, anyone working fewer than 20 hours per week was classified as unemployed. Under the new rules, anyone who works at least one hour is considered employed.
The statistician-general himself admitted that the drop in figures is due to the change in methodology, not government performance, and that ninety-three percent of the employed population now work in the informal sector. This is not progress; it is the statistical erasure of joblessness.
The poverty figures are nothing short of a national emergency. A staggering sixty percent of Nigerians are now living in poverty, a dramatic surge from forty percent, according to World Bank reports.
The United Nations has projected that approximately thirty million Nigerians will move into poverty this year alone, bringing the total number of Nigerians described as poor to nearly one hundred and forty million.
The abrupt removal of fuel subsidies and the chaotic devaluation of the naira, executed without adequate safeguards for the Nigerian people, are the direct causes of this suffering. This is economic shock therapy imposed on a vulnerable population, and the patient is dying.
Yet the government continues to borrow at an alarming rate while claiming that savings from subsidy removal will transform the economy.
Nigeria will spend approximately 11.6 billion dollars servicing its debt in 2026, nearly half of its projected government revenue. Debt-servicing costs are crowding out spending on infrastructure, healthcare, and education.
The government is broke, with nothing left to invest in the future. Every single dollar that leaves the treasury to pay punitive interest rates is a dollar that did not go into steel production, textile manufacturing, agro-processing, or digital industries.
The administration has borrowed more money than Nigeria borrowed since independence, yet contractors remain unpaid, and nobody can explain where the money has gone.
The security situation, which the administration inherited as a complex but manageable challenge, has deteriorated into a nationwide catastrophe.
According to the March 2026 Populations at Risk report from the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, at least five hundred and eighty civilians, mostly women and girls, were kidnapped across several Nigerian states in 2024.
Between January and November 2025, at least four hundred and two people, mostly school children, were kidnapped in North-Central Nigeria.
Already in 2026, one hundred and sixty were abducted in January, another one hundred and sixty were killed after two neighbouring communities were attacked in Kwara State, and between the fourth and sixth of April 2026, about three hundred civilians, mostly women and children, were abducted.
Military generals and other ranks have also been killed. This is not a nation under control; it is a nation under siege.
What makes this bloodshed even more reprehensible is the administration’s response. Rather than demonstrating urgency and accountability, President Tinubu has turned national tragedy into political theatre.
When receiving Governor Caleb Mutfwang and Plateau State stakeholders following a terrorist attack in Angwan Rukuba, the President told them they were playing into the hands of his enemies who want to use insecurity to get rid of him.
He declared, “I am a stubborn politician. I just refuse to go”, and added that he will campaign for a second term.
The Senate President echoed this disturbing theory, suggesting that the insecurity is a calculated gang-up to create fear among the people and discredit the government.
When leaders cannot distinguish between national security and political survival, citizens pay with their lives.
The refusal to accept responsibility is perhaps the most corrosive aspect of this administration. Not once has President Tinubu acknowledged that his policies have caused unimaginable suffering. Not once has he apologised for the economic hardship his reforms have unleashed.
The money saved from subsidy removal has disappeared into a black hole of debt servicing and opaque spending. The promised gains have failed to materialise, yet the administration continues to blame external factors, global financial systems, and political opponents for the catastrophe it has created.
This is governance without accountability, leadership without empathy, and power without responsibility.
Even the modest macroeconomic improvements the administration touts, such as rising foreign exchange reserves and foreign direct investment projections, fail to translate into meaningful improvements in the lives of ordinary Nigerians.
The government claims to be on track to attract nearly twenty billion dollars in foreign direct investment in 2026, but investors remain cautious.
While oil-and-gas production is rising and Shell has expressed interest in developing a twenty billion dollar offshore oilfield, these projects will take years to materialise and will create relatively few jobs for the millions of unemployed Nigerians. The stock market may have jumped, but the family budget has been shattered.
The human cost is measured in empty stomachs, closed businesses, and shattered dreams. Urban middle-class families who once lived comfortably now struggle to afford a kilo of rice.
Small business owners who employed five or ten workers have closed their doors. Students have dropped out of school because their parents can no longer afford fees.
Patients have died because hospitals could not afford fuel for generators or because families could not afford transportation to medical facilities.
This is the legacy of three years of disaster: a nation pushed to the brink by reckless policies implemented without compassion or competence.
May 29, 2027, must mark the end of this national nightmare. President Tinubu and his administration have demonstrated conclusively that they are incapable of governing.
They have broken every promise, exacerbated every crisis, and accepted responsibility for nothing. Allowing them to remain in power beyond that date would be an act of collective national suicide.
The rebuilding process, when it finally begins, will take decades. Every additional day of this administration deepens the hole from which the next government must dig the nation out.
The Tinubu administration has destroyed Nigeria’s economy, compromised its security, impoverished its people, and eroded its democratic institutions.
The blame game must end. The broken promises cannot be mended. What remains is the urgent task of removing this failed government and beginning the long, painful work of national recovery. After May 29, 2027, not a day longer. The future of Nigeria depends on it.
