Nigeria at 65: The Pain of Reform without Protection

Nigeria turns 65, not as a thriving power commensurate with its raw potential, but as a nation acutely aware of how far its reality has diverged from its promise. Though rich in youth, endowed with natural resources, and with decades of experience in self-governance, millions of Nigerians today endure economic distress, insecurity, hunger, and a failing social fabric—and many of these deep problems trace back to policies of the current administration, particularly since the removal of fuel subsidies and the liberalization of foreign-exchange rates. Without urgent corrective action, these policies risk leaving long-lasting scars on our human capital, sovereignty, and stability.

What the Numbers Tell Us

•Inflation: After a 2024 peak of around 34.8% in December, Nigeria’s headline inflation declined to 24.48% in January 2025, then to 23.18% in February, before rising again to 24.23% in March. While there is a modest easing towards mid-2025 (22.22% in June 2025), prices—especially for food—remain excessively high and volatile.

•Poverty: The World Bank estimates that some 129 million Nigerians now live below the national poverty line (roughly 56% of the population), up sharply since 2018 when the share was roughly 40%.

•Out-of-school children: UNICEF reports approximately 18.3 million children are out of school in Nigeria. This number is historically high, making Nigeria home to the largest population of out-of-school children globally.

•Economic Reform Moves: Key reforms of the past two years include (a) removal of fuel subsidies in May 2023, (b) unification of foreign exchange (FX) rates via a “willing buyer–willing seller” framework around October 2023. These aimed to correct fiscal and macro distortions but came with high transitional costs.

How Policy Choices Have Made Things Worse (Especially for the Vulnerable)

While many of the reforms undertaken address real structural distortions, their design, sequencing, and compensatory mechanisms have been weak. The result: immediate economic pain, social stress, and a fertile environment for insecurity and violence.

1.Shock to the Cost of Living:

The removal of fuel subsidy meant transport, goods distribution, and energy costs rose steeply. FX unification increased import costs—notably food, machinery, fertiliser, medicines. For poor households, who spend the bulk of income on food and transport, these changes cut real incomes deeply and immediately.

2.Insufficient Safety Nets:

There’s been no sufficiently large, fast, and well-targeted system of cash transfers or compensations for those most exposed. Many households have been left to absorb shocks with no buffer. The over N330 billion the administration claims it has disbursed to over 8 million households is largely felt on the pages of newspapers and talking points on television and radio stations. Delays, weak targeting and sometimes opaque delivery have reduced trust and effectiveness.

3.Erosion of Livelihoods and Rising Unemployment:

Businesses facing higher input costs, and consumers with eroded purchasing power, have cut back. Jobs, especially for youth, in sectors sensitive to energy and import prices (transport, agriculture, small manufacturing, retail) have been lost or stagnated, direct consequence of the over 7.2 million small and medium scale businesses that have closed down in the last two years due to forex volatility and runaway inflation. With few alternatives, desperation rises.

4.Link to Insecurity:

The economic squeeze sharpens pre-existing fault lines: competition for scarce resources (land, water, grazing routes), local disputes become armed banditry; youth with few opportunities are more susceptible to recruitment by criminal and insurgent groups; weak state presence in rural or peri-urban areas means such violence is tolerated or cannot be checked. Kidnappings, rural raids, banditry in the northwest, farmer-herder clashes, and Boko Haram’s persistent insurgency remain direct consequences of weakened livelihoods, unaddressed grievances, and lack of protection.

5.Human Capital Loss:

The combination of hunger, high food inflation, school closures from insecurity, displacement, and sheer inability for families to pay fees has pushed millions of children out of school (≈18.3 million). Those lost years of education damage long-term productivity, encourage early dropout into unsafe work, child labour, or even joining armed groups and other non-state actors. I can go on and on.

What Must Be Done: A Panacea in Three Acts

To reverse the drift toward crisis, and to avert a possible NEPAL consequence, in my view, Nigeria must pair its reform ambition with a bold, inclusive, and credible stabilisation plan. Reforms should not only seek macro-efficiency but embed fairness and protection. I espouse below a proposed three-act strategy:

Act I: Stabilise Lives, Cut government spending, Restore Trust (0-12 months)

•Rapid cash transfers targeting the poorest, not the one for Newspapers and optics: Identify poorest 20-30% of households via existing mechanisms, but originating from the communities, not Aso Rock or State Houses (conditional on transparency, digital delivery) to immediately cushion fuel, food and transport cost spikes. These can be funded from the savings emanating from the drastic cut in cost of governance across all tiers; security votes, convoys, overseas travels, etc.

•Emergency food aid, school feeding and health outreach in conflict-affected areas: ensure that children have access to basic nutrition, remedial schooling or safe learning spaces, and healthcare to avoid mortality and long-term losses.

•Deploy mobile or community justice/security response: bolster local policing, protect rural and peri-urban communities especially in bandit/insurgent zones, ensure kidnappings are met with investigation & swift justice to restore credibility of the state, and not payment of ransoms.

•Transparent disclosure of reform savings: Show how savings from subsidy removal or FX reforms are being used, in what proportion, and where benefits flow. Visibility builds legitimacy.

Act II: Rebuild Resilience (6-24 months)

•Livelihood support & agricultural revival: Subsidised inputs (seeds, fertilisers), credit access for smallholders; support small and medium enterprises with energy credit lines, and single digit interest loans; rebuild rural markets and roads.

•Education investment: Prioritise reopening and rebuilding schools in unsafe regions, incentivise teacher retention in hardship areas, conditional cash or food support to families to keep children in school, especially girls.

•Moderate monetary and fiscal balance: The Central Bank must maintain vigilance in monetary tightening to tame inflation, but fiscal policy must avoid sharp spending cuts that hit ordinary citizens. Trapped Bank of Industry funds MUST be released immediately so they can continue to lend at reasonable interest rates to viable businesses. Borrowing should be for productive investments.

•Strengthen local governance and accountability: Empower local authorities and community structures with funds and oversight to respond appropriately, reduce corruption, ensure public services reach intended recipients.

Act III: Anchor Sustainable Growth & Equity (1-3 years)

•Diversify economy beyond oil: invest in industrialisation, tech, renewable energy, agriculture value-chains. Increase competitiveness and reduce import dependency.

•Build robust social protection systems: Universal or near-universal health care basics, insurance schemes, poverty registers updated and transparent, labour programs for youth.

•Long-term security sector reform: Re-orient towards preventive policing, intelligence, judicial prosecution, demilitarized but well-equipped forces; community policing; reform prisons and rule of law to reduce impunity.

•Institutional reform & anti-corruption drive: Transparent budgeting, participatory oversight, strong enforcement of punishments for high level corruption, recovery of stolen assets, improved procurement systems.

Conclusion: Choice Point for Nigeria’s Next Three Years

Nigeria stands at a crossroads. The current administration’s reform agenda addresses real distortions—but policy cannot be decoupled from the human cost. Without credible, visible protection for the vulnerable and a focus on securing human lives and dignity, risk of fragmentation, deeper insecurity, the Nepal option, and inter-generational disaster increases.

If we continue the path of reforms without protection, we risk creating a generation that loses education, health, hope—and with hope gone, stability follows its exit.

If, however, the administration acts boldly: pairing reform with compassion; giving ordinary Nigerians not just promises but visible relief; restoring trust; securing lives; investing in youth and local security—then Nigeria can transform these years of pain into foundations for a more equitable and secure tomorrow.

At 65, the country must decide: will history judge us for what we endured, or for what we built?