By [Rabboni Ayoola Oriowo]
There is a dangerous illusion forming in Abuja.
On paper, Nigeria is recovering. In the house, Nigerians are miserable.
The World Bank in its October 2026 Nigeria Development Update, titled Beyond the Federal Purse, says our economy grew 4.2% in the first half of 2026, inflation has fallen from 34.80% in December 2024 to 15.15% in December 2025, external reserves are up from $45.5bn to $53.8bn, federation revenue is up 69% in real terms. The Presidency has celebrated this as proof that reforms are working.
But the same World Bank, in its April 2026 Update, says something else:
Nigeria’s poverty rate rose from 56% in 2023 to 63% in 2025. That is 140 million Nigerians below the poverty line. The Misery Index for Nigeria in 2025 is 37.89, making us the 37th most miserable economy in the world, with inflation as the major driver. Prices are decelerating, poverty is deepening. Both are true.
This is the core of our Misery Index: Macro improvement without micro relief.
- The Borrowing Contradiction
On May 29, 2023, President Tinubu announced fuel subsidy was gone. The promise was that we would stop borrowing to consume.
Two and a half years after, what do the numbers say?
From N87.38 trillion in June 2023 when this administration took over, total public debt is now N159.28 trillion by December 2025 and N166.79 trillion by Q2 2026 according to the Debt Management Office. That is a 90.9% nominal increase in three years. Domestic borrowing in the first eight months of 2026 alone was N24.7 trillion, a 90.5% increase over the same period of 2025.
The President defends it: “Borrowing is not leprosy; we just have to work hard to be able to pay back.”
He is right. Borrowing is not leprosy. But borrowing to service debt is. In 2025, debt service alone was N14.32 trillion, more than the entire deficit of N13.08 trillion. We are borrowing not to build, but to repay what we borrowed to not build.
And where is the capital budget? In 2024, N13.77 trillion was allocated for capital, only N5.81 trillion was released, only N3.27 trillion was utilized — less than 25%. In Q1 and Q2 2025, less than 1% of the capital budget was released. You cannot borrow for infrastructure and not release for infrastructure.
- The Silence of the Presidency at End of First Term
We are months to the end of the first term. The two great reforms — subsidy removal and FX unification — have been done. The macro graphs are looking up.
But the presidency is curiously silent on the only question that matters to Nigerians: When does stabilization become standard of living?
Inflation down to 15% means nothing if cumulative price level is still 200% higher than 2023. A bag of rice that was N30,000 is now N80,000, it used to be N100,000 — yes, inflation is down, but it is still unaffordable. The N70,000 minimum wage in August 2026 cannot buy what N30,000 bought in 2023.
The official unemployment rate is now 5% under ILO methodology — one hour of work in a week counts as employment. But the Labour Institute itself admits this hides underemployment. 63% poverty with 5% unemployment is a statistical joke on the Nigerian worker.
The people are not feeling the recovery because recovery has been concentrated in services and oil, while agriculture where more than half of the poor work has lagged.
- The Way Out — From Misery Index to Prosperity Index
We cannot pray our way out of misery. We must produce our way out.
A. Tie every new borrowing to a revenue-generating asset and publish it. No more borrowing for consumption. Every loan request to the National Assembly must carry: project, ROI, repayment timeline, and quarterly release report. If the Presidency says borrowing is not leprosy, then show us the cure it is buying.
B. Force capital budget execution. Amend the Fiscal Responsibility Act to make it illegal to roll over 75% of capital budget unreleased while debt service exceeds 100% of deficit. States got 151% increase in real capital spending from higher FAAC — Federal must do same. Money must leave CBN to the site.
C. Fix food to fix misery. Misery Index is driven by food. Inflation fell because CPI was rebased, not because food became cheap. Declare a 2-year emergency on food logistics: Rural roads, storage, irrigation, and security for farmers. Insecurity is now a monetary policy problem.
D. Convert “cash transfer to 10 million households” to “production transfer to 10 million farmers and artisans”. Cash without productivity is inflation. Give 10 million households inputs, extension, power, and market access, not just N25,000 that buys two chickens.
E. Presidential Communication. The silence is breeding cynicism. The President must speak quarterly not to foreign investors, but to Nigerians, in plain language: This is what we borrowed, this is what we built, this is when you will feel it. Reform without explanation is punishment.
Conclusion
The first term will not be judged by World Bank charts. It will be judged by market women.
A macro economy that improves while its people remain miserable has not improved. It has only changed the location of its failure — from the exchange rate to the dinner table.
The President still has time. But time is no longer his excuse — it is now his judgment.
We do not need more borrowing. We need more building. We do not need more silence. We need more sincerity.
Nigeria cannot afford to stabilize into misery. Or do we need to die first before we can live well?
