Rising petrol prices and economic reforms under President Tinubu have devastated Nigeria’s middle class and deepened poverty. This opinion piece critiques the effects of neoliberal policies on Nigerians’ quality of life and questions government responses.
The torment of incessantly escalating petrol prices and the consequent surge in the cost of everything have plunged Nigerians into a precipitous decline in quality of life. This dire situation is exacerbated by insensitive, almost mocking remarks from those responsible for inflicting this pain.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, aptly nicknamed “T-Pain,” recently stated from London that Nigerians would, in the future, appreciate the wisdom of his “reforms.” Such a statement is both callous and mendacious.
It is callous because these “reforms” are literally destroying the livelihoods of millions and causing the deaths of many. What benefit could the deceased derive from economic reforms that precipitated their untimely demise?
It is mendacious because, as evidenced by the history of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) in Nigeria and the experiences of other nations implementing similar neoliberal economic reforms, such policies invariably erode the middle class, exacerbate poverty among the lower classes, and please the markets, thereby benefiting the upper classes.
Almost without exception, neoliberal policies—such as the elimination of subsidies, deregulation, reductions in social spending, and fiscal austerity—exacerbate economic inequality and hinder sustainable development in developing economies. These policies often benefit large corporations and the wealthy, creating an inequitable concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and widening the chasm between the rich and the poor.
“What benefit could the deceased derive from economic reforms that precipitated their untimely demise?”
Thus, the deferred benefits for which Tinubu wants Nigerians to endure mass deaths and hopelessness are the opening of Nigerian markets to international competition—which may please global markets but will overwhelm local businesses lacking the resources and technology to compete—and the freeing up of resources to invest in infrastructure.
However, contemporary Nigeria is inhospitable to foreign investment due to the absence of security, social, and physical infrastructure and because Tinubu’s policies have impoverished the majority so that they cannot afford to purchase what foreign businesses produce. This explains the mass exodus of foreign companies since 2023.
Furthermore, given the culture of endemic corruption entrenched within the upper echelons of power, most of the funds saved from subsidy withdrawals, tariff increases, intensified taxation, and cuts in social programs will likely be misappropriated. The government will still borrow from the World Bank and the IMF to finance its operations.
We are already witnessing this phenomenon. Despite massive cash inflows into government coffers, new projects have yet to be constructed or even initiated. In fact, governments at all levels are procrastinating over implementing the ₦70,000 per month minimum wage. State governors convert the excess funds they receive from federal allocations into dollars and stash them away, putting pressure on the naira.
Now, the vast majority of Nigerians have resigned themselves to the fact that death, starvation, and hopelessness are the only certain outcomes of Tinubu’s “reforms” and are seeking a way out. Middle-class citizens are saving up to leave the country, and, for the first time ever, even most of northern Nigeria’s middle class is investing in plans to escape from Nigeria.
“Akpabio and his ilk choose to stay in Nigeria not out of love for the country but because they thrive off it and are insulated from the harm they inflict upon it.”
In response, Senate President Godswill Akpabio declared that Nigerians fleeing the blazing neoliberal hellhole that Tinubu has created are ungrateful and unpatriotic cowards who should be stopped. “I believe people should place love for their country above financial gains. That is why many of us choose to remain here,” he said.
Akpabio and his ilk choose to stay in Nigeria not out of love for the country but because they thrive off it and are insulated from the harm they inflict upon it. The professionals leaving Nigeria in droves are not doing so because they lack love for their country. They love their country; they abhor the raging neoliberal inferno it has become. It is insulting to suggest, as Akpabio did, that Nigerian emigrants are motivated by base and unpatriotic motives. Even more insulting is Akpabio’s proposed solution to halt emigration: dissatisfied Nigerians should reduce the number of cars they own.
At times, one wonders whether Akpabio retains any functioning brain cells.
Meanwhile, Remi Tinubu, Bola Tinubu’s wife, continued this pattern of insulting Nigerians amidst their suffering. On Thursday, she told the Ooni of Ife that her husband is not responsible for Nigeria’s current travails, which contradicts her husband’s own acceptance of responsibility for the hardships Nigerians are enduring—with a promise of an imaginary better tomorrow as compensation for the pain he is inflicting.
“We are just 18 months into our administration,” she said. “We are not the cause of the current situation. We are trying to fix it and secure the future.”
She then inverted logic, implying that Nigerians are suffering not because her husband has increased petrol prices more times and at higher rates than any previous president but because prior presidents did not do what her husband is doing.
“Tinubu’s neoliberal policies are eradicating the middle class and plunging the poor into more POVERTY”
“We know that subsidy has been removed, but with God on our side, in the next two years, Nigeria will be greater than this,” she said. “Those who attempted removing subsidies before could not see it through. But with your prayers in the next two years, we will build a nation for the future.”
The rage that overcame me upon reading this is beyond description. Do these insensate individuals utilize their cognitive faculties at all?
I have long harbored a suspicion that the upper echelons of Nigeria’s power structure have been displeased with the emergence of a middle class since 1999. The markers of middle-class status—such as car and home ownership, fine dining, foreign education, and sartorial sophistication—have deprived the upper class of privileges they believed should remain exclusive to them.
In the early 2000s, they used to speak derisively of “Obasanjo drivers”—individuals who could afford to own cars due to the minimum wage increase and minimum wage arrears during Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency. It isn’t Obasanjo who gave people cars or created the middle class. By its nature, democracy creates certain jobs and circulates opportunities that foster the middle class.
Now, Tinubu’s neoliberal policies are eradicating the middle class and plunging the poor into more profound, more excruciating poverty, reminiscent of the days of military dictatorship. I wonder how much longer this can continue. Yet we will observe from afar, as nothing happening now is a shock. I forewarned that this would occur even before Tinubu assumed power.
The opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author, and does not necessarily align with the views of JolibaLive News! or any of its staff members. The author is in no way associated with this online news blog.
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