By Joachim OLUMBA.
I laugh whenever I hear apologists of this visibly failed All Progressives Congress (APC)-government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu screaming, “Relax Tinubu is Fixing Nigeria.” I laugh not at their evident foolery, but their profound hollowness in thinking that reasonable Nigerians will believe such a mindless fallacy.
Who would ever believe them? Is there any right-thinking fellow, having watched the extremely poor performance of this government in more than three years, who trusts that Tinubu is capable of fixing the rot and myriad of challenges bedeviling the nation? How can Tinubu fix Nigeria that he has significantly ravaged and plunged into grave failure, misery and perfidy? This is unthinkable, taking into cognisance the prevailing conditions of the comatose economy, acute poverty, pervasive insecurity, widespread corruption, piercing divisiveness, disunity, nepotism and total lack of confidence by the people in the present lacklustre government. It’s proper to buttress the terrible and highly unenviable scorecard of this administration with specific statistics and samples of events and actions.
RAVAGED ECONOMY
Nigeria’s economy crashed completely immediately Tinubu announced the highly injurious policies of removal of fuel subsidy without adoption of social safety nets to cushion the very harsh effects; the floating of the country’s currency that plummeted the Naira and culminated in fostering the worst levels of inflation in our history; and the rash increases of electricity tariffs and import duties. It unleashed unimaginable suffering and pain on the widest proportion of the population of this country. Poverty levels rose astronomically, dragging many with it.
Under President Goodluck Jonathan, World Bank reports had it that poverty levels in Nigeria stood at an uncomfortable 46% in 2013. In fact, his administration had been credited with the reduction of poverty in the same year from 48% to 46% through the implementation of some strategic economic development policies. What this implied was that less than 90 million Nigerians were confined below poverty line under President Jonathan.
Then came the tragic era of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from 2015 to date with Muhammadu Buhari and subsequently Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the saddle as presidents. The poverty figures grew scary. People were plunged into stupendous poverty in their astronomical numbers.
By the end of 2023, about 133 million Nigerians were driven into multi-dimensional poverty under the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC). According to the survey conducted jointly by National Bureau of Statistics, the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office and the United Nations, 86 million of these extremely poor Nigerians were living in the North while 47 million were found in the Southern part of the country.
More recently, the World Bank reported that the number of people living in multidimensional poverty in Nigeria have further increased substantially hitting 61% in 2024 and expanding to 63% in 2025. With these percentage figures, the population of Nigerians trapped in acute poverty stands at between 139 and 140 million.
To further understand the severity of these terrifying records being brandished by the Tinubu-led APC administration, the United Nations World Food Programme reports that 17 million people in Northern Nigeria are currently facing acute starvation. In other words, under President Tinubu, extreme hunger is prevalent in the Northern parts of the country with 17 million people going without food for most of the time.
Apart from the harsh policies evolved by the government, the worsening insecurity in the North is hastening the descent of people into multidimensional poverty. Farmers cannot access their farmlands, and food production is affected adversely as many communities are deserted, with people taking refuge in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in different states of the North. With no answers coming from Tinubu’s government to reverse the perilous times, it’s almost certain that, the poverty levels will degenerate further before the life of his administration terminates in 2027.
These are the frightening legacies of the man who is claimed to be fixing Nigeria. What a ridiculous cliche!
INSECURITY
If the Tinubu administration has performed woefully in addressing the parlous state of the economy, his inability to contain the surge in cases of banditry, kidnappings for ransom, killings and violent attacks on communities, is even more lamentable.
Under Jonathan, there were rampant cases of bombing of churches and public places with only one recorded case of mass abduction of students. The Chibok Girls’ School abduction in 2014 is widely believed to be responsible for the defeat of Jonathan in the presidential election of early 2015.
The APC capitalised on the heinous abduction of school children to win power in 2015. With the military background of Muhammadu Buhari people widely believed that he was well-equipped to confront the security challenges adequately. Their expectations evaporated soon as the insurgency that seemed confined to the Northern part of the country began to spread with intensity across the country. Under the APC leadership of Buhari, the security situation deteriorated badly with insurgents concentrating more on genocidal activities and kidnappings. Buhari was widely believed to be sympathetic to the cause of the insurgents, especially the Fulani terrorists who were clearly obsessed with attacking Christian communities in Benue, Plateau, Kaduna and Adamawa States. He failed woefully to stop them.
As terrible as the attacks of terrorists and bandits were under Buhari, the cases of insecurity had multiplied and worsened under the Tinubu regime. More than thirteen cases of mass abduction of school children have been recorded across the country, even in the South West. Premium Times gave the figures of abducted school children and teachers in three years of Tinubu’s presidency as 674 while that of Buhari stood at about 120 students in his first three years in office.
Giving a comparative insight into the cases of mass abduction of school children between the Goodluck Jonathan era and now, Premium Times reported the occurrence of only one of such incident under the Otuoke-born one-time Nigerian president, involving 276 students. According to the report, there were 16 incidents of abductions from schools involving 1,360 students over a period of 8 years of Buhari’s rule. Under Tinubu, the report cited 13 incidents of student abductions numbering 674 within a space of 3 years. From the foregoing, it is incontestable that the era of Tinubu recorded more incidents of students abduction given the period he has been in power.
The total number of abductions recorded in Tinubu’s first two years of occupation of office, according to some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), was over 8,000 people. Nigeria’s highways have been turned into kidnapping and killing fields by violent criminals, as countless people now dread traveling by road to their destinations.
According to Premium Times, between 10,217 to 18,079 civilians were killed by extremists and criminals in the first two years of Tinubu’s administration. When the number of military and paramilitary personnel are added to this, the entire figures might well rise above 20,000. The situation is so bad that almost all Nigerians feel the air of insecurity hovering around virtually all corners of the country, except those who are heavily guarded by security operatives.
CORRUPTION
Under Tinubu, corruption is extensively believed to have metamorphosed to a monster. Contracts are awarded without recourse to due process. A typical example is the Lagos to Calabar coastal highway which contract was awarded to Hitech Construction Company Limited, owned by a crony of Mr. President, without following established mechanism of open bidding which targets to achieve competitiveness, transparency and cost savings. This is just one prominent case involving staggering amounts of money. It’s perhaps the highest single contract award in the history of the present democratic era. It’s a 700-kilometre road project estimated to cost a whopping₦15 trillion (approximately $13b).
This is not an isolated case of government transaction or expenditure with the trappings of corruption, extravagance and lack of transparency and accountability. Only recently, report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed that a staggering ₦8.83 trillion said to be about 2% of Nigeria’s GDP was expended outside of budgetary provisions. In other countries, this alarm would have triggered the invocation of relevant constitutional laws against the government. Unfortunately, a government being run by compromised people at all levels and a country populated by ethnic bigots and people guided by other parochial sentiments have moved on without any concern for the shocking revelation.
Recently, Nigerians are inundated with a scandalous news of a government agency described by some top officials as fake. Yet, this is an agency with provisions in the national budget of 2026 exceeding ₦1.3 billion. It has an operational office accommodation in the Federal Secretariat Complex, Abuja, and maintains account with the Central Bank of Nigeria. There are quite a number of incriminating developments tied around the so-called fake agency, and everything reeks of a government enmeshed in corruption. Who knows how many more of such agencies as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) that are in place, but have not yet come under the klieg lights.
This same government which some myopic supporters are claiming would fix the country only in its second term, had shown clear signs of recklessness and imprudence in financial management in the past. Huge sums of money had been spent on the procurement of a presidential Jet to add to the large fleet; a completely unnecessary presidential Yacht; SUVs for the president, his wife and National Assembly members; renovation of the president’s and vice-president’s official residences, and so on.
It appears that the government is fond of undertaking financial expenditures on frivolities while starving fundamental areas of critical importance of funds. An alarmed nation was recently told that, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Services, got a release of a paltry ₦36 billion out ₦218 billion earmarked for capital projects in its 2025 budget. The story is not substantially different from what is obtained in other key ministries.
Meanwhile, the president has bought plenty of expensive campaign buses and SUVs in a country where ambulances are hardly available to cater for the needs of millions of poor and average Nigerians.
DEBTS
In 8 years, President Buhari incurred a total fresh debt stock of ₦75.26 trillion. He left office with the country’s total debt profile standing at ₦87.38 trillion, having sustained subsidy on fuel and electricity tariffs.
Most shockingly, under Tinubu’s administration- without paying fuel subsidy and with substantial increments on electricity tariffs- implying more funds at the disposal of government, he has doubled the public debt stock of the country in just three years. This means that in less than three years of his ascension to power, Tinubu almost rivalled his predecessor by expanding the debt stock of the country with roughly ₦72 trillion, thereby bringing the whole public debt to ₦159.28 trillion, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). However, with recent approvals by the National Assembly for procurement of fresh foreign credit facilities, the country’s public debt might have exceeded ₦180 trillion. 90% of these debts have been incurred under successive APC administrations. We thought that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was bad until we were administered by an awfully tragic brand of leaders from the APC stock.
For a president who is making a lot more revenue without spending a dime on subsidy and yet borrowing the most and not impacting meaningfully on the lives of Nigerians leaves a whole lot to be desired.
With all these stark records, Tinubu is an unmitigated disaster and should never have any plausible or justifiable reasons to want to seek reelection or spend a day beyond May 29, 2027, in office. If after three years in office, we cannot easily rejoice and gleefully point to a preponderance of reasons to call upon him to continue in office legitimately, it simply means that he’s a total failure.
With all the overwhelming facts of poor performance of the Tinubu administration which are monstrously staring Nigerians in their faces, it’s preposterous, in fact, insane, for anyone to contemplate that this president will ever fix the challenges with Nigeria. He is one highly incompetent, insensitive, uninspiring and unreliable leader. Above all, he lacks the confidence of a true national leader. He’s simply an unabashed tribal bigot.
It’s indeed nonsensical for anyone to ask Nigerians to, Relax, that Tinubu will Fix Nigeria. He’s incapable of fixing Nigeria, even if he’s given two decades to remain in the exalted office. He’s like Buhari in terms of not having the capacity to deliver, but unlike Buhari, he has a voluminous penchant for wealth accumulation through every possible means.
2027 is a time for Nigerians to liberate themselves from the tragic rule of Tinubu and his APC. Let’s all try to vote wisely and rightly by sending out an old, tired and incompetent man in favour of a man with competence, capability, character and compassion.
Olumba writes from Owerri, the heartbeat of Eastern Heartland.
