Nigeria Times

1. Introduction
   The Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) notes the observations on Nigeria contained in the 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report of the United States Department of State. The Federal Government welcomes objective assessments of its public financial management system and remains committed to the continuous improvement of fiscal transparency, accountability and access to public finance information.
   The Report acknowledges important areas in which Nigeria meets fiscal transparency requirements, including the public availability of the enacted budget and end-of-year fiscal information; the disclosure of debt obligations, including major state-owned enterprise debt; the legal and disclosure framework governing the sovereign wealth fund; and the existence and application of statutory procedures governing natural-resource extraction contracts and licences.
   Other observations in the Report require clarification when considered in the context of Nigeria’s institutional allocation of responsibilities and the range of budgetary and fiscal information already in the public domain. The purpose of this response is therefore not to dispute the value of external scrutiny, but to ensure that the factual record and the structure of Nigeria’s fiscal system are properly understood.
2. Mandate of the Budget Office of the Federation
   The BOF is responsible for coordinating the preparation and consolidation of the Federal Government’s budget, and for monitoring and reporting on its implementation within the framework established by law and government fiscal policy.
   Its responsibilities include coordinating the preparation of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP); issuing Budget Call Circulars; coordinating the preparation of Medium-Term Sector Strategies; coordinating the preparation and consolidation of the Executive Budget Proposal; supporting the appropriation process; monitoring budget implementation; and producing periodic Budget Implementation Reports.
   These responsibilities form part of a wider public financial management system in which different institutions perform duties assigned to them by the Constitution and by statute. Debt recording and management fall principally within the remit of the Debt Management Office; government accounting, treasury and cash-management functions reside principally in the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation; external audit is constitutionally assigned to the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation; while federal procurement operates within the statutory framework administered by the Bureau of Public Procurement and individual procuring entities.
   The observations in the Report are therefore best considered in the context of this institutional division of responsibility. Fiscal transparency is the product of an interconnected system; no single institution produces or controls every category of information on which an assessment of the entire system must depend.
3. Publication and Accessibility of Budget Information
   The Report recommends that Nigeria make its Executive Budget Proposal widely and easily accessible to the public, including online. The BOF respectfully notes that the online publication of the Executive Budget Proposal and other major budget documents has, for several years, formed part of the Federal Government’s established budget process.
   The BOF routinely publishes major documents produced at successive stages of the fiscal cycle. These include the MTEF/FSP, the Executive Budget Proposal and detailed estimates, Appropriation Acts, implementation guidelines, and periodic Budget Implementation Reports.
   For example, the 2025 Executive Budget Proposal was published on the BOF website on 18 December 2024 alongside the 2025 Appropriation Bill. The 2026-2028 MTEF/FSP was similarly published, while the 2026 Appropriation Bill and its detailed estimates were placed on the BOF website on 8 January 2026.
   The purpose of continuing reform, therefore, is not to create a practice of publication where none exists, but to make an established practice more timely, systematic and easier for users to navigate. Fiscal information is useful not merely because it exists, but because it is published at the appropriate time, clearly identified and readily connected to the other documents needed to understand the fiscal picture.
   Following presidential assent to an Appropriation Act, the signed instrument is subjected to validation and line-by-line reconciliation against the version passed by the National Assembly before the final budget details are reflected on the Government’s financial management platform and released for public use. This process is intended to ensure that the figures, codes and statutory references placed before the public correspond with the instrument that has become law.
   For the 2026 Appropriation Act, this process took longer than would ordinarily be desirable. The Budget Office considered it preferable to complete the necessary validation before publication rather than place in the public domain figures that might later require correction. That choice protected the integrity of the published record, but the delay also demonstrates the need to shorten the interval between presidential assent and public availability.
   The lesson is therefore twofold: published fiscal information must be reliable, but that reliability must increasingly be achieved without sacrificing timeliness. The BOF is reviewing its internal sequencing, validation and publication arrangements with that objective in mind.
4. Completeness of the Presentation of Government Revenues and Expenditures
   The Report recommends that the budget provide a substantially complete picture of government revenues and expenditures. Nigeria’s fiscal framework is expressed through several related documents rather than through a single instrument. The MTEF/FSP establishes the macroeconomic and fiscal assumptions underlying the annual budget. The Executive Budget Proposal, Appropriation Bill and detailed estimates set out proposed expenditure allocations, revenue assumptions and the financing framework. Budget Implementation Reports subsequently show performance against approved benchmarks.
   Taken together, these documents contain extensive information on projected revenues, expenditure proposals, financing and the operations of Government-Owned Enterprises. The budget documentation also provides information on grants, external financing and other material fiscal flows within the Federal Government’s reporting framework.
   Expenditure is presented through institutional and economic classifications, including allocations to ministries, departments and agencies. The Government also publishes detailed estimates relating to the Presidency and other institutions of government, subject always to the legitimate requirements of law, national security and operational confidentiality.
   The BOF therefore considers that an assessment of Nigeria’s fiscal transparency is most complete when it examines the available budget documents as a body, rather than treating any one document as though it were intended to contain the entire fiscal account.
   This does not remove the need for improvement. Citizens, investors and other users of fiscal information should be able to understand the broad relationship among revenue, expenditure, financing and fiscal risks without having to reconstruct the fiscal picture from numerous documents. The Office will therefore continue to improve consolidation, cross-referencing and presentation so that information already disclosed across different fiscal documents can be more readily understood as a coherent whole.
5. Expenditures Relating to Executive Offices
   The Report recommends a clearer breakdown of expenditures supporting executive offices. The BOF agrees with the transparency objective underlying this recommendation.
   Appropriations to offices and institutions within the Executive are subject to the same constitutional appropriation process that applies to other Federal Government entities. Detailed estimates are already published within the budget documentation. Where expenditures are currently aggregated within broader administrative, personnel or service-wide classifications, there remains scope to improve their presentation without compromising legitimate security, statutory or operational considerations.
   The BOF will accordingly continue to examine the classification and presentation of such expenditures with a view to improving public understanding within the applicable legal and security framework.
6. Variance Between Budgeted and Actual Revenues and Expenditures
   The Report observes that actual revenues and expenditures did not reasonably correspond with the enacted budget. The BOF considers that this observation would benefit from greater precision regarding the standard against which such correspondence is being assessed.
   An appropriation is an authority to spend; it is not, in every circumstance, a guarantee that the entire amount appropriated will become available in cash. Actual fiscal outcomes depend on realised revenues, oil production and prices, tax collections, exchange rates, financing conditions, cash availability and the timing of expenditure execution. A difference between an approved budget and the eventual outturn must therefore be interpreted rather than merely observed.
   The central transparency question is whether material deviations are identified, explained and reported. This is one of the purposes of the Budget Implementation Reports produced by the BOF, which compare revenue and expenditure performance against approved benchmarks and explain significant departures from the fiscal plan.
   At the same time, persistent or unusually large differences between appropriations and outturns can weaken the usefulness of the budget as an instrument of economic management. The Government’s continuing reforms therefore place greater emphasis on realistic revenue forecasting, improved revenue mobilisation, stronger commitment controls, better cash planning and closer alignment between appropriations and available financing.
7. Audit Independence and Publication of Audit Reports
   The observations concerning the independence of the Supreme Audit Institution and the publication of audit reports relate principally to the constitutional and statutory mandate of the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation and to the wider legislative framework governing public audit.
   The BOF supports a strong and independent external audit function as an essential component of fiscal accountability. It will continue to provide the budgetary and implementation information required within its mandate and to cooperate with the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation and other oversight institutions.
   Institutional or legislative questions concerning the independence, powers and publication obligations of the Supreme Audit Institution are, however, appropriately addressed in conjunction with the Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, the National Assembly and other authorities responsible for the applicable legal framework.
8. Public Procurement Information
   Federal procurement is governed by the Public Procurement Act and the institutional framework administered by the Bureau of Public Procurement, while procurement transactions are undertaken by individual procuring entities. The recommendation concerning the publication of accessible information on procurement contracts should therefore be addressed principally through that framework.
   The BOF nevertheless recognises the close relationship among appropriation, procurement, commitment and payment. Greater interoperability among budget, procurement and treasury information systems would materially improve the public’s ability to follow expenditure from appropriation through procurement to eventual payment and delivery. The Office supports the continued development of such integrated public financial management arrangements.
9. Timeliness, Institutional Capacity and the Fiscal Responsibility Framework
   Fiscal transparency should be treated as a continuing institutional obligation, not as an exercise undertaken solely in response to an external assessment. The experience of producing statutory fiscal reports has, however, brought into sharper focus a question that warrants attention beyond administrative improvement alone.
   Fiscal reports are assembled from numerous sources across government. Their reliability depends on the timely submission of information, reconciliation among institutions, resolution of discrepancies and verification before publication. Where these processes repeatedly require more time than the statutory reporting period permits, the response should not simply be to normalise lateness.
   Government must first improve the processes that can be improved: clearer responsibility for source data, earlier submission, greater automation, greater interoperability among systems and stricter reporting discipline.
   However, where experience over time demonstrates that a statutory deadline no longer reasonably accommodates the number of institutions, datasets and verification steps required to produce a reliable report, there is also a legitimate case for reviewing the law itself.
   The purpose of the Fiscal Responsibility Act is to strengthen fiscal discipline, accountability and transparency. Its reporting provisions should therefore impose deadlines that are demanding enough to compel administrative discipline, but sufficiently realistic to permit the publication of information whose accuracy can be defended.
   The Federal Government should accordingly consider, through the appropriate legislative process, whether aspects of the reporting timetable under the Fiscal Responsibility Act require amendment in the light of experience since its enactment. Such a review should not weaken reporting obligations. Its purpose should be the opposite: to establish timelines that are credible, enforceable and capable of producing reports that are both timely and reliable.
10. Institutional Engagement and Continuing Improvement
    The Fiscal Transparency Report can also serve as a basis for constructive technical engagement. The BOF considers it useful to deepen dialogue with the United States Government and other development partners on the methodology used in fiscal transparency assessments, particularly the treatment of multiple publicly available fiscal documents, the measurement of budget credibility, and the standards applied to timeliness and accessibility.
    Such engagement should be approached as an opportunity for clarification and institutional learning rather than as a dispute over the assessment. The Office may also explore appropriate technical assistance arrangements to strengthen its capacity in fiscal reporting, information management, digital publication, interoperability and public accessibility. Any such cooperation should complement Nigeria’s own reforms and operate within the Government’s legal, institutional and information-security framework.
11. Conclusion
    Nigeria accepts the principle at the heart of fiscal transparency: citizens and other stakeholders should be able, without unnecessary difficulty, to know what the Government intends to raise and spend, what the legislature has authorised, what was eventually received and spent, and how public resources were accounted for and audited.
    Nigeria has already built a substantial architecture for making this information public. The question before us is therefore not whether disclosure exists, but how to make the existing system faster, clearer, more complete and easier to understand.
    There are areas in which Government must improve its own processes. There are areas in which fiscal information already exists but must be assembled and presented more coherently. There are responsibilities that belong to institutions other than the Budget Office. There may also now be statutory reporting timelines whose continued practicality deserves examination in the light of experience.
    A mature system should be able to acknowledge all four points without defensiveness.
    The Budget Office therefore welcomes external assessments that assist Nigeria in strengthening its institutions. It also considers it important that such assessments take account of the full range of fiscal documents made publicly available and of the constitutional and statutory division of responsibilities among institutions.
    The Federal Government remains committed to a budget system in which fiscal decisions are not only lawful and disciplined, but are also increasingly transparent, accessible, intelligible and capable of independent public scrutiny.

Tanimu Yakubu
Director-General
Budget Office of the Federation
Abuja
18 August 2026

Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, has joined millions of Nigerians in celebrating the 85th birthday of former military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd), fondly known as IBB.

In a heartfelt tribute, Dogara described General Babangida as “a statesman of uncommon vision whose leadership helped shape the destiny of Nigeria.” He emphasized that Babangida’s years in power were marked by bold reforms, infrastructural expansion, and the creation of new states that gave voice and identity to millions of Nigerians.

Born on August 17, 1941, General Babangida rose through the ranks of the Nigerian Army to become Head of State in 1985. His eight-year tenure remains one of the most defining eras in Nigeria’s political and economic journey. During his administration, Babangida introduced far-reaching economic reforms, strengthened Nigeria’s federal structure through state creation, and invested in infrastructure projects that continue to serve the nation decades later.

Dogara noted that Babangida’s foresight in establishing institutions and agencies has left an enduring legacy. He highlighted the former president’s role in expanding Nigeria’s federation, ensuring equity and representation across diverse regions, and laying foundations that successive governments have built upon.

Beyond his years in office, Dogara commended Babangida’s enduring role as an elder statesman. Even in retirement at his Minna Hilltop residence, Babangida continues to provide wise counsel to successive governments and inspire younger generations with his humility, patriotism, and resilience.

He prayed for Babangida’s continued health, strength, and grace, adding that his life is a testimony of service to God and country.

As Nigerians reflect on his 85 years, Babangida’s story is not only one of military distinction and political leadership but also of enduring influence in shaping Nigeria’s path toward unity and progress. His legacy continues to resonate, reminding the nation of the importance of vision, courage, and commitment to the common good.

An advocacy group, the Centre for Democracy (CDD), has given the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers Council, Pius Akutah, five days to explain why he allegedly failed to resign from his position after obtaining the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship nomination form.

In a statement signed by its Director of Operations, Barrister Jude Oseni, and made available to journalists, the group alleged that Akutah ought to have resigned immediately after obtaining the nomination form.

The group said his alleged failure to resign breached a presidential directive requiring federal appointees seeking elective positions in the 2027 general elections to relinquish their appointments by March 31, 2026.

According to the CDD, failure to comply with the directive amounts to insubordination to President Bola Tinubu and raises questions about Akutah’s relationship with the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Minister of Transportation.

The group threatened to institute legal action against Akutah if he failed to publicly clarify that the APC governorship nomination forms were purchased by another person without his knowledge.

The CDD further alleged that Section 88(3) of the Electoral Act would prevent Akutah from participating in the election if he is presented as the APC governorship candidate, claiming that his alleged failure to resign from public office made him ineligible to contest.

The group also claimed that the APC, or any other political party that fields Akutah as its governorship candidate, could face legal consequences over his alleged non-compliance with the resignation requirement.

“His failure to resign on May 31, 2026 has made him ineligible to contest for the 2027 governorship election in the All Progressives Congress and also in any other political party,” the statement said.

The CDD argued that presidential directives constitute orders or policy guidelines issued by the President to the executive branch of government, provided such directives do not conflict with the Constitution or laws enacted by the National Assembly.

It cited Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution, which vests executive powers of the Federation in the President, and Section 130(2), which provides that the President is the Head of State, Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

The group argued that these constitutional provisions empower the President to issue directives to officials under his authority, including heads of ministries, departments and agencies.

It also cited Section 171 of the Constitution in arguing that the President’s authority over the appointment and removal of certain public officers reinforces his power to issue administrative directives to officials under his control.

The CDD alleged that President Tinubu’s directive requiring political appointees seeking elective office to resign by March 31, 2026 was issued to ensure compliance with electoral guidelines and promote fairness ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The group further referenced Section 88(1) of what it described as the Electoral Act, 2026, which it said provides that a political appointee at any level shall not serve as a voting delegate or be voted for at the convention, congress or primary of a political party for the purpose of nominating candidates for an election.

On that basis, the CDD argued that any political appointee who failed to resign in accordance with the directive would be ineligible to participate in a party’s nomination process or emerge as its candidate.

The group therefore called on Akutah to clarify his status within five days, warning that failure to do so would prompt it to pursue legal action over what it described as an alleged breach of the presidential directive and electoral law.

What the evidence says about hardship, recovery and the road ahead
By Tanimu Yakubu, Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation
The argument should begin where Nigerians live
Any serious discussion of the reforms must begin with what Nigerians can see and feel. Food is expensive. Transport takes a larger share of income. Electricity, rent and school bills press harder on household budgets. For many families, the question is not whether an economic indicator has improved. The question is whether their money can still carry them through the month.
That hardship is real, and we should say so without hesitation. But hardship by itself does not tell us what caused it, nor does it tell us whether reversing the reforms would make the country better off. Those are separate questions, and they require evidence rather than anger or reassurance.
The PUNCH report of 16 July 2026 presents poverty as persisting ‘despite reforms’. The phrase is striking, but it compresses several different issues into one. The World Bank and IMF material cited around the same debate records both a deeply vulnerable population and an economy that has returned to stronger real growth, built larger external buffers and moved away from some of the distortions that had accumulated before 2023.[1][2][3][4] The fair reading is therefore not that hardship has vanished, nor that reform has achieved nothing. It is that economic repair has begun while household relief has lagged behind.
A poverty crisis that did not begin in 2023
Nigeria did not enter May 2023 from a position of broad prosperity. Growth per person had been weak for years. Foreign exchange was scarce. Multiple exchange rates encouraged arbitrage. Fuel subsidy costs absorbed public resources. Insecurity kept farmers away from parts of the land. Electricity remained unreliable, transport was costly and too few Nigerians held secure formal jobs.[2] Poverty and vulnerability were already widespread before the present reform programme began.
That history is important because causation matters. A poverty problem built over many years cannot reasonably be attributed in full to policies introduced three years ago. But history cannot become an alibi. The exchange-rate adjustment and fuel-subsidy removal imposed immediate costs on people who had little room to absorb them. Imported goods and inputs became more expensive. Transport costs rose. Inflation eroded wages and savings. Those consequences belong in any honest account of the reforms.
We do not strengthen our case by appearing to argue that suffering is merely inherited. We strengthen it by acknowledging that necessary reforms have had painful consequences and then showing, with evidence, how our policies are reducing those consequences.
What the 79 per cent figure does — and does not — mean
The widely quoted figure that 79 per cent of Nigerians are poor or vulnerable is serious, but it needs to be read correctly. The World Bank’s Streamlined Country Diagnostic distinguishes those already below the poverty line from those who are near-poor or vulnerable to falling below it.[1][2] The number therefore describes a broad zone of insecurity, not a single poverty headcount in which every person is in the same condition.
The distinction does not soften the warning. A household only slightly above a poverty line can be pushed below it by a failed harvest, a medical bill, the loss of a job or another rise in food prices. What the figure shows is how narrow the margin of safety is for millions of Nigerians. It should not, however, be turned into proof that the reforms created a poverty stock that plainly predates them.
The economy has not collapsed, but households are still waiting
World Bank data show real GDP growth of about 4.0 per cent in 2025. The IMF estimated the same rate for 2025 and projected about 4.1 per cent for 2026. Gross international reserves were around US$46 billion at the end of 2025, up from about US$40 billion a year earlier, while net reserves also improved.[3][4] These figures are not a substitute for household welfare, but they are evidence against the claim that the economy has simply collapsed under reform.
The fall in GDP measured in current United States dollars also needs care. A sharp depreciation of the naira reduces the dollar value of naira output even when the volume of goods and services produced is rising. World Bank data can therefore show positive real growth alongside a lower current-dollar GDP.[3] The depreciation has real costs: imported inputs become more expensive and the external value of domestic incomes falls. But it is analytically wrong to treat a translation effect as if it were an equal fall in physical production.
None of this should be presented triumphantly. Nigerians do not eat reserves. A better fiscal balance does not put rice on a table by itself. The value of stabilisation lies in what it permits next: investment, production, employment, lower inflation and better public services.
Relief will come from making more things and moving them more cheaply
The most convincing answer to hardship will not come from another speech about macroeconomic stability. It will come when the supply of food, energy, transport and industrial inputs improves enough to lower costs in everyday life. That is where several large projects now approaching important stages become relevant.
The Kano-Jigawa-Katsina-Maradi railway is one example. We reported in May 2026 that the project was about 60 per cent complete, with delivery targeted for the end of 2027.[5] Its relevance is practical. Northern farmers and traders move large volumes over long distances on roads that are expensive to maintain and slow to use. A working freight corridor can lower haulage costs, widen markets for agricultural produce and improve trade through the northern border. The benefit of the railway will not be the number of kilometres of track. It will be the saving that eventually appears in the cost of moving grain, livestock, fertiliser and manufactured goods.
Lagos shows the same principle in urban transport. The first phases of the Blue and Red Lines are already carrying passengers while extensions continue.[6] For a commuter, the value of mass transit is measured in time, predictability and the share of income spent getting to work. For business, it is measured in a city that moves people with less dependence on road congestion and fuel-intensive transport. That is how infrastructure becomes an alleviative measure rather than a monument.
The Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline can have an even wider industrial effect. NNPC’s May 2026 report placed the mainline in advanced construction, installation and pre-commissioning, with early gas delivery to Abuja targeted in 2026.[7] Northern industry has long paid heavily for unreliable energy. Gas delivered into the corridor can support power generation and manufacturing, reduce dependence on expensive self-generation and make new investment more viable. The public will judge the pipeline not by its diameter, but by the factories it helps to run, the jobs it supports and the costs it helps to bring down.
Fertiliser shows what supply reform can mean on the farm
The fertiliser story is closer to the next harvest. Under the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative, more than 449,000 metric tonnes of inputs had been secured by May 2026, and we were on course for a 1.1 million metric tonne programme – roughly 22 million bags – supported by more than 90 operational blending plants.[8]
For years, the problem was not merely the existence of blending plants. A plant without raw materials is an idle factory. Information available to us indicates that, under the previous administration, some plants could secure enough raw materials for only about three months of production. We have moved to secure raw materials on a basis intended to sustain blending through the year. That change is important because it turns installed capacity into actual supply.
The difference is easy to understand. A plant that works for three months produces little and carries high unit costs. A plant supplied through the year can produce more, spread its costs over a larger volume and compete in a market with less scarcity. As availability rises, scarcity pricing becomes harder to sustain. Farmers gain better access to fertiliser when they need it, yields can improve, and the resulting increase in food supply should place downward pressure on prices in 2027.
The effect will not occur by proclamation. Fertiliser must reach farmers, crops must be planted, fields must be secured, harvests must be moved and markets must remain competitive. But this is a visible chain of cause and effect, and it is a stronger basis for expecting lower food prices than administrative price controls.
Rice mills: feed the mills, not the import market
The same supply argument applies to rice. About 300 rice mills are struggling, not because Nigeria lacks milling capacity, but because too many of them cannot obtain enough paddy to run steadily. When a mill operates below capacity, workers lose shifts, fixed costs are spread over fewer tonnes, farmers lose a dependable buyer and the price advantage of domestic processing is weakened. Importing finished parboiled rice may appear to close a supply gap quickly, but it also transfers the milling, transport, handling and much of the value added to producers outside Nigeria.
Our intervention should therefore address the shortage at its source. We need to stimulate local paddy production while permitting the importation of the raw-material shortfall where domestic supply is temporarily inadequate. The purpose of such imports would be to keep Nigerian mills running, not to displace them. As local output rises, the imported component should fall. That approach protects consumers from scarcity while preserving demand for Nigerian paddy and creating a stronger incentive for farmers to expand production.
For rural households, this distinction is consequential. A bag of finished rice imported into Nigeria creates little income for a farmer in Kebbi, Kano, Jigawa, Niger, Taraba or Ebonyi. Paddy supplied to a Nigerian mill does. It supports cultivation, aggregation, haulage, milling, packaging and distribution before the rice reaches the market. Keeping the roughly 300 mills supplied therefore attacks food scarcity and rural poverty at the same time. It raises domestic value added, strengthens the market available to farmers and retains more of every naira spent on rice within the Nigerian economy.
The objective is not permanent dependence on imported paddy. It is to prevent idle domestic capacity while we close the production gap. The durable answer remains higher yields, more irrigated cultivation, improved seed, fertiliser, extension services, secure farming communities and reliable links between growers and mills. But where a temporary shortfall exists, importing the missing raw material is economically preferable to importing the finished product and leaving Nigerian factories underused.
Security is also an economic policy
A farmer who cannot enter his field does not produce. A trader who fears the road moves less produce and charges more for risk. In this sense, the campaign against banditry is also a campaign against food inflation.
Security operations in 2026 restored access to a number of communities and allowed economic activity to resume in areas that had been badly disrupted.[10] It would be inaccurate to claim that banditry has disappeared from every affected area. The economic test is narrower and measurable: are more farmers returning to their land, are more hectares being cultivated, and is more produce reaching markets with fewer losses and delays?
Where the answer is yes, the effect should combine with better fertiliser availability. More cultivated land, higher input use and safer distribution can produce a larger harvest. If those gains hold through the 2026 farming cycle, consumers should begin to see more relief in food markets in 2027.
Why the alternative also has a cost
It is easy to compare the pain of reform with an imagined version of the old system in which prices stayed low and no one paid the difference. That system did not exist. The difference appeared elsewhere: in subsidy bills, foreign-exchange shortages, parallel-market premiums, arrears, inflation and public resources that could not be spent on other needs.
The real choice is not between painful reform and painless continuity. It is between completing a difficult correction and returning to arrangements that had become increasingly expensive to finance and easier to exploit. That does not excuse poor implementation. It means that the answer to hardship is to improve the reform, protect vulnerable households and accelerate the supply response, not to rebuild the distortions that made correction unavoidable.
The test now is whether Nigerians can feel the change
We should not ask Nigerians to celebrate numbers they cannot yet feel. Our better argument is to show where the numbers lead. Stronger public finances must produce roads, power, schools, health care and productive investment. Better reserves and a more orderly foreign-exchange market must support confidence, investment and a more stable supply of essential goods. The reforms will be vindicated in the lives of Nigerians, not in the vocabulary used to describe them.
These are not slogans. They are outcomes that can be checked. If fertiliser remains scarce despite year-round input supply, then our policy has not worked as intended. If rice mills remain idle for lack of paddy while finished parboiled rice is imported, we will have missed an opportunity to reduce scarcity through Nigerian production and rural incomes. If secured communities do not return to cultivation, the economic benefit has not been realised. If new rail and gas infrastructure do not reduce costs or expand productive activity, completion alone will not be enough. We must therefore measure success by what these interventions do to production, prices, jobs and household welfare.
Nigeria’s poverty crisis is older than the present reforms. Our reforms have nevertheless imposed real costs on households that were already under strain. Both facts can be true at the same time. The evidence also shows that real output has grown, external buffers have improved and important constraints on production are being addressed. Our responsibility now is to convert those gains into relief that is visible in markets, incomes and public services.
That is where the debate should end and our work should begin: not with a claim that hardship has disappeared, and not with the claim that reform has failed because hardship persists, but with a clear test. Are we producing more? Are we keeping our fertiliser plants and rice mills working? Are we moving goods more cheaply? Are farmers returning to their fields? Are factories operating for longer? Are families beginning to see prices ease and opportunities expand? Those are the questions by which Nigerians will judge us, and rightly so.
References

1. Sami Tunji, “Poverty threatens 79% of Nigerians despite reforms – World Bank,” PUNCH, 16 July 2026.
2. World Bank, Nigeria Country Partnership Framework FY2026–FY2032 and accompanying Streamlined Country Diagnostic, 2026.
3. World Bank, World Development Indicators, Nigeria country data, including 2025 current-dollar GDP and real GDP growth; accessed August 2026.
4. International Monetary Fund, Nigeria: 2026 Article IV Consultation — Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nigeria, IMF Country Report No. 26/125, June 2026.
5. State House, Abuja, “FG: Kano-Jigawa-Katsina to Maradi Railway Project 60 Percent Completed; Set for Delivery End of 2027,” 3 May 2026.
6. Lagos State Government, official updates on Lagos Rail Mass Transit Blue and Red Lines, including operational Phase I services; 2024–2025.
7. NNPC Limited, Monthly Report Summary, May 2026: AKK mainline construction, installation and pre-commissioning activities, with early gas delivery to Abuja targeted in 2026.
8. State House, Abuja, “President Tinubu Hails MOFI, NADF for Strengthening Nigeria’s Fertiliser Value Chain, Supporting Food Security,” 18 June 2026.
9. Ministry of Finance Incorporated / PFI-NPK reporting on early 2026 procurement and distribution of fertiliser raw materials to registered blending plants, June 2026.
10. Official security reporting on continuing operations against banditry and kidnapping and the restoration of access to affected communities, 2025–2026.