Nigeria’s Cost-of-Living Crisis Deepens Under Tinubu Reforms: As Millions are Pushed Deeper into Poverty

SNOW TV NEWS DESK
Three years after President Bola Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, Nigeria faces a stark paradox. Bold macroeconomic reforms—chiefly the removal of the decades-old petrol subsidy and the unification and liberalization of the foreign exchange market—have restored a measure of fiscal stability, raised government revenues, and improved external reserves and growth figures. Yet these same policies triggered an inflationary shock that has driven tens of millions more Nigerians below the poverty line, eroded real incomes, and produced one of the most severe cost-of-living crises in a generation.

According to successive World Bank Nigeria Development Updates and related assessments, the national poverty rate rose from around 56 percent in 2023 to 61 percent in 2024 and peaked near 63 percent in 2025. This translates to roughly 139–143 million people living below the national poverty line—up by an estimated 15–18 million since Tinubu took office. Independent analyses, including an Agora Policy study supported by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, put the post-reform headcount at about 63.3 percent, up from roughly 50 percent before the subsidy removal and related adjustments.

The mechanism is clear. Petrol prices more than tripled after the subsidy was scrapped, sending transport, logistics, and production costs soaring. The naira’s sharp depreciation amplified imported inflation. Food prices, electricity tariffs, and rents followed. The average cost of a healthy meal rose from about ₦515 in mid-2023 to over ₦1,600 by mid-2025 in some estimates; intercity bus fares and rents roughly doubled or more. Real wages lagged far behind, leaving household purchasing power severely compressed. Low-income and northern households were hit hardest.

The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly noted that while the reforms stabilized the macroeconomy, “gains have yet to benefit all Nigerians as poverty and food insecurity remain high.” Roughly 27 million people faced acute food insecurity in late 2025. Even as headline inflation eased from peaks near 35 percent in late 2024 to the mid-teens by late 2025 and into 2026, wage growth and job creation have not kept pace, so poverty has not yet begun a sustained decline.

Macro gains versus household pain

The government and its supporters point to clear stabilization achievements. Federation revenues rose 69 percent in real terms between 2023 and 2025. State governments, the biggest beneficiaries, increased capital spending by more than 150 percent in real terms, directing funds toward roads, agriculture, energy, and housing.

External reserves climbed above $50 billion (reaching $53.8 billion by August 2026 in some reports). GDP growth strengthened to around 4 percent and hit 4.2 percent in the first half of 2026; the World Bank projects average growth of at least 4.4 percent through 2028. Public debt is expected to edge down as a share of GDP. Credit rating agencies have noted an improved fiscal outlook.

Tinubu has welcomed the latest World Bank update, arguing that the “difficult but necessary” decisions to end the subsidy, unify the FX market, and tighten fiscal discipline have created space for investment in people. He highlights expanded cash transfers (claimed to reach more than 10–15 million households), a new national minimum wage of ₦70,000, student loans under NELFUND, infrastructure projects, and efforts to promote compressed natural gas and agricultural productivity. Officials insist the alternative—continued subsidy-driven fiscal hemorrhage and multiple

exchange rates—would have produced an even deeper crisis.

Critics, including labor leaders, civil society figures, and some economists, counter that the social safety nets were too slow, too narrow, and poorly targeted. The middle class has been hollowed out, small businesses have struggled under higher energy and input costs, and insecurity continues to disrupt food production, especially in the North. Think tanks such as the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise acknowledge the reforms averted worse outcomes but stress that the welfare impact remains “considerable” and that translating stability into jobs, higher real incomes, and lower poverty is now the central challenge.

SNOW TV NEWS EDITORIAL ANALYSIS
Tinubu’s reforms were overdue. Nigeria could no longer sustain a fuel subsidy that consumed vast fiscal resources while largely benefiting the better-off and creating massive opportunities for corruption and smuggling. Multiple exchange rates distorted the economy and deterred investment. Correcting these imbalances was necessary for long-term solvency and growth.

Yet necessity does not erase the human cost or the policy sequencing failures. The shock was delivered with insufficient compensatory measures at the outset. Cash transfers and other protections scaled up too slowly relative to the speed and depth of the price increases.

The result is a classic reform dilemma: markets and multilateral institutions applaud the stabilization, while ordinary households experience the adjustment as a sharp rise in poverty and hunger. Macroeconomic numbers improve; lived experience deteriorates for the majority.

The next phase will determine whether these reforms ultimately reduce poverty or merely stabilise it at a higher level. Sustained single-digit inflation, faster real wage growth, credible job creation, effective agricultural and security interventions, and transparent, well-targeted social spending are essential. Without them, the political and social sustainability of the reform program remains fragile. Nigeria’s challenge is no longer only to stabilise the books; it is to ensure that stabilisation finally reaches the people who have borne its heaviest cost.