Dr. Olarinre Salako argues that President Tinubu’s economic reforms, while theoretically sound, have been implemented with profound insensitivity to the immediate suffering of Nigerians, pushing millions into poverty and risking both lives and political stability.
By Olarinre Salako, Ph.D.
September 1, 2025
Introduction
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is both a national leader and a Yorùbá elder, and surely must have heard the saying: “Àyángbẹ ajá dùn, ṣùgbọ́n kíní kan la ó jẹ kí ajá ò tóò gbẹ.” Literally, it means: “A deeply fried dog is delicious, but we must eat something else first, because it takes too long to deeply fry a fatty dog.”
Of course, Yorùbá people are not in the habit of eating dogs (except perhaps in parts of Ondo, as a cultural aside). The essence of the proverb is wisdom, not cuisine: leaders cannot keep people waiting indefinitely for the promise of a better tomorrow while ignoring their immediate hunger and pain today.
Unfortunately, President Tinubu and his team have failed to apply this timeless wisdom in their much-touted Renewed Hope reforms.
This wisdom is not peculiar to the Yorùbá alone:
◾ Hausa People say: “Ruwa baya tsami sai ruwa ya yi yawa” – “Water does not go sour until it becomes too much.” Leaders must manage burdens gradually, not dump them suddenly on the people.
◾ Igbo Elders remind us: “Nwata buru ibu, o ga-egbu ya n’ụzọ” – “If a child carries a heavy load beyond his strength, it will crush him on the way.” Reforms should never exceed the carrying capacity of citizens.
◾ Chinese warn: “Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.” Rash and heavy-handed solutions often cause more damage than the original problem.
◾ And in the Western world, they say: “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Incremental relief is better than endless promises of perfection.
President Tinubu’s refusal to grasp these truths is plunging Nigerians into unprecedented poverty. If urgent corrections are not made, this insensitivity will not only cost him a second term but, tragically, may claim more lives long before the 2027 general election.
Already, retirees are unable to pay for essential medicines, and working parents are struggling to keep their children in school. Youth unemployment rate is relentlessly rising. These human costs — lives lost to poverty, preventable suffering, and broken families — are the motivation for this article.
Business, Economic and Social Analogy
In business, even the best products are worthless if they do not meet the customers’ immediate needs. So also, economic reforms that are theoretically sound but fail to provide short-term cushions in fragile societies like Nigeria are destructive.
Human beings live between the tension of the ideal and the realistic. A pure idealist may look admirable in books, but people prefer realists who deliver bread on the table.
Governance is no different: the mandate-holders (elected officials) must never forget that their mandate came from the people. Reforms that ignore the people’s welfare invite rejection at the ballot box, no matter the machinery of incumbency.
Two Major Reforms with Insensitive Execution
- Fuel Subsidy Removal
For decades, Nigeria’s fuel subsidy was riddled with corruption. Some importers collected billions without importing a drop of fuel. During President Jonathan’s administration, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala courageously began auditing and cleaning up the subsidy accounts—a move so threatening that her mother was kidnapped by vested interests. Corruption fought back, but light triumphed over darkness. Thanks to the security agents who rescued her mother.
This is the path President Tinubu should have followed: strengthening accountability and punishing offenders. Instead, he chose the easiest escape route—total removal of subsidy.
Nigerians are rightly asking: why did our Commander-in-Chief abandon the more difficult fight against entrenched fuel importers, and instead shift the full burden onto us, ordinary citizens, by removing the subsidy outright?
Energy is never cheap anywhere in the world. Every sensible government cushions its people through targeted subsidies and price regulation:
- United States spends billions annually on tax credits, production incentives, and direct supports for oil, gas, and renewable energy. Beyond that, they deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to shield Americans from runaway gasoline prices.
• China controls domestic energy tariffs to protect its industries and workers. - India subsidizes LPG and diesel for households and farmers, ensuring food security and rural survival.
- European Union governments stepped in due to the Russia-Ukraine war to cap household energy bills and subsidize consumption.
Why? Because without cushioning, ordinary citizens – retirees, students, middle class workers, SMEs, and manufacturers collapse under full market costs.
Nigeria also has a natural instrument for price stability—our refineries. Yet they remain moribund, crippled by the same cabal that profited from subsidy corruption. Any government serious about renewing hope would have declared the refineries a national emergency, sacked complicit officials, and restored production before even considering subsidy removal.
The truth is obvious: there is a nexus between Nigeria’s non-functional refineries and the corruption in the subsidy regime. They are two sides of the same coin, and both should have been confronted together, with the courage of a leader who feels the pulse of his people with empathy.
By tackling corruption in the subsidy and reviving our refineries, President Tinubu could have earned a historic national victory rather than a painful reform.
- Single Exchange Rate Reform
The Central Bank’s decision to float the Naira has merit. It ends the arbitrage racket that allowed a privileged few to siphon billions through multiple exchange rates. But in a consumption-dependent economy where almost everything is imported, the immediate effect was predictable: Naira collapse, skyrocketing prices, and erosion of workers’ purchasing power. Today, the Naira has lost more than half its values against the Dollars in two years!
Here too, the reform was rushed. A phased withdrawal, combined with digital technologies to block illicit capital flows, would have been wiser. Instead, the government opted for shock therapy.
No serious country leaves its currency to “free fall.” Everywhere, governments intervene:
• Japan steps into the markets to buy Yen when volatility threatens stability.
• Switzerland caps the value of the Franc to protect exporters.
• China keeps the Yuan within a controlled band.
• South Korea routinely intervenes to stabilize the Won.
These interventions are not signs of weakness, but of responsible governance — recognizing that markets alone cannot safeguard national welfare. Yet Nigeria’s leadership left the Naira exposed, without buffers or safeguards. Worse still, this came alongside fuel subsidy removal—double hardship, with no safety net for households or industries.
Conclusion
In just two years, credible reports (World Bank, 2024) estimate that nearly 30 million Nigerians have been pushed into poverty. SMEs relying on diesel are collapsing. Manufacturers dependent on imported inputs are shutting down. Workers’ salaries have been shredded by inflation. Families are suffocating.
Uncle Bola Ahmed, please remember the Yorùbá wisdom: “Àyángbẹ ajá dùn, ṣùgbọ́n kíní kan la ó jẹ, kí ajá ò tóò gbẹ.” Nigerians are groaning. Hunger is biting. Hope is fading. Yet it is not too late. By choosing empathy and courage over expedience, you can still transform Renewed Hope from a slogan into real hope for the people. But if you fail, hardship will intensify. The style of governance that may have worked for Lagos since 1999 cannot be applied wholesale to a nation as vast, diverse, and fragile as Nigeria.
Act now—before it is too late. Otherwise, more families will be driven into poverty, and many more may die of hunger. And when democracy offers Nigerians a choice in 2027, no amount of vote-buying or incumbency power will shield your government from the people’s judgment. If you could lose Lagos and Òṣun in 2023 Presidential election, even more states can slip away from you in the 2027 election.
That, indeed, is the enduring beauty of democracy: the people’s unassailable right to choose their leaders.
Dr. Olarinre Salako – a multi-disciplinary scientist, engineer and consultant writes from Texas, USA. His expertise spans energy, oil and gas, automotive, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Formerly, a research scientist at the Energy and Environmental Research Center, he contributed to pioneering technologies and best practices for energy transition in multi-million-dollar U.S. Department of Energy projects. He consulted for Toyota on Data & AI for vehicle safety and electrification, resulting in 10 patented inventions. He is also a U.S. Department of Justice Fully Accredited Representative on Immigration Law. Born in Òyó town, Nigeria, he is passionate about Nigerian nation-building.
This is well-written. The president and his team do not care about the masses. There are better ways to go about this reformation, instead, they chose the hard way for the citizens because of their greed and corruption. I hope Nigerians will be wise enough during the next general election.
Exactly, the timing of the removal of the subsidy was wrong. Other things should have been put in place first