By Abdullahi Danladi
Adanladi08@gmail.com
+(234)8039208479
Nigeria today appears trapped on a perilous and confusing trajectory, steered by a leadership class increasingly detached from the lived realities of the people. The current administration under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has pressed ahead with a series of deeply unpopular and widely criticized economic policies, particularly in the area of taxation, despite reasoned objections from economists, policy experts, labour unions, and civil society actors. Rather than engage in genuine consultation or policy recalibration, the government has chosen insistence over introspection, authority over accountability.
One of the most troubling contradictions of the moment is the government’s approach to agriculture and food security. At a time when local farmers are crying out for support, the state has resorted to importing maize and other agricultural inputs—an act that not only undermines domestic production but exposes a deeper failure of planning and vision. Fertilizers, where available, are sold at exorbitant prices beyond the reach of the average farmer. The result is predictable and tragic: farmers have cultivated under unbearable cost conditions, only to sell their produce at losses, further impoverishing those who are supposed to feed the nation. A country that cannot protect its farmers has already surrendered its food sovereignty.
Equally disturbing is the apparent collapse of legislative independence. Reports that lawmakers allegedly received financial inducement, figures as staggering as $50,000 for senators and $30,000 for members of the House of Representatives, disguised as Christmas gift, only to smoothen the passage of the 2026 budget raise profound ethical and constitutional questions. Even more alarming is the fact that the 2024 and 2025 budgets remain largely unimplemented. One is compelled to ask: what exactly is being approved, and in whose interest? When the legislature becomes an extension of the executive’s will rather than a check on it, the so-called democracy itself is reduced to ritual without substance.
The removal of petroleum subsidy, perhaps the most consequential policy decision of the Tinubu administration, was sold to Nigerians as a painful but necessary sacrifice that would ultimately translate into improved welfare, infrastructure, and social services. Yet, reality has cruelly betrayed this promise. Petrol prices have skyrocketed, transportation costs have exploded, and the prices of basic goods and services have followed suit. There is no visible relief, no compensatory social safety net, and no measurable improvement in the quality of life of the average Nigerian. Nigerian hospitals have worsened, left only for the poor that have no alternative. Nigerian roads are worse. The current grid lock on Abuja to Lokoja is just an example. Security has since becile delusional, where people areeft to fate. Sacrifice without justice is exploitation; pain without hope is cruelty.
Taken together, these policies paint a grim picture of governance that prioritizes fiscal arithmetic over human dignity, elite comfort over popular survival, and political expediency over moral responsibility. The Nigerian common man who is already battered by unemployment, inflation, insecurity, and failing public services, now bears the full weight of decisions taken without his consent and against his interest.
This reality forces an unavoidable and painful question: what is the fate of the Nigerian common man? In a system where those entrusted with power appear insulated from the consequences of their actions, who will speak for the voiceless, who will restrain the powerful, and who will restore governance to its original purpose which isservice to the people?
Nations do not collapse only by war; many are destroyed slowly by policy arrogance, moral indifference, and the normalization of suffering. Nigeria stands at such a moment. History will judge not only those who imposed these burdens, but also those who remained silent while a people were pushed to the edge. The question, therefore, is no longer merely who will save Nigerians, but whether the conscience of the nation will awaken before the damage becomes irreversible.
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