At a glance, Nigeria appears to be turning a corner. Inflation is slowing. Exchange rate volatility is easing. Global credit agencies are applauding fiscal consolidation. And with a GDP growth estimate of 3.7 percent in the first half of 2025, it’s tempting to declare that the worst is behind us.
But this is the cruel irony of Nigeria’s macroeconomic recovery story: the numbers are rising, but the people are not. Progress is being declared in boardrooms while desperation deepens in the marketplaces. This is the paradox of reform without relief, a recovery that looks good on paper but feels hollow to the average Nigerian.
“ The World Bank puts the figure of those living below the monetary poverty line at 104 million, a staggering indictment of an economic system that grows but does not distribute.”
The government’s reform agenda has, to its credit, delivered certain structural corrections. From market liberalisation to tax reform, FX auctions to debt market expansion, policymakers have taken steps long advised by economists and development partners. Sovereign credit outlooks are improving. The naira, for the first time in a year, is trading within a predictable band. Bond yields are rising, and investor sentiment is returning.
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But let us be clear: progress on macroeconomic charts means little if it cannot be felt in kitchens, classrooms, clinics, and farms. Nigerians are not statistics. Their pain cannot be pacified by PowerPoint.
Despite the disinflation narrative, headline inflation moderating to 22.97 percent from a brutal 34.8 percent in December 2024, the cost of food and transport remains prohibitively high. Rice, garri, yam, cooking gas, and even tomatoes are still beyond the reach of millions. For the typical Nigerian family, the word “reform” no longer conjures hope but fear of yet another subsidy removal, another currency devaluation, another round of tightening without cushioning.
Over 133 million Nigerians remain multidimensionally poor, per the National Bureau of Statistics. That’s more than 60 percent of the population living without access to quality healthcare, education, clean water, or decent housing. The World Bank puts the figure of those living below the monetary poverty line at 104 million, a staggering indictment of an economic system that grows but does not distribute.
And in Nigeria, poverty is not merely the absence of income. It is the presence of danger. Insecurity has strangled the nation’s agricultural belt. From bandit-infested Zamfara to insurgency-ravaged Benue, farmers are abandoning their fields, fleeing for their lives. This has collapsed rural supply chains and pushed up prices in urban markets. We are not just dealing with inflation; we are witnessing structural famine disguised as a policy side effect.
How can a nation claim recovery when children are going to bed hungry, when hospital queues stretch for hours without medication, and when schools are crumbling and teachers, unpaid? When insecurity drive farmers off their land and urban dwellers into despair?
This disconnect between data and dignity is the central moral failure of the current reform process.
Public trust is thinning. The government celebrates its ratings while citizens question their reality. Investor confidence may be back, but citizen confidence is fraying.
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There is danger here. A recovery that lifts only markets but not people is a recovery that will not last. Social frustration is cumulative. When citizens cannot reconcile official optimism with lived hardship, cynicism hardens. And where cynicism grows, so does the space for populism, unrest, and resistance.
Growth without equity is a fragile illusion. It is not enough to stabilise the naira or impress the IMF. We must restore faith in the Nigerian project by making reform a path to relief, not pain.
Now is the time for a deliberate pivot from macroeconomic discipline to microeconomic inclusion. The gains of H1 2025 must not be squandered in H2. This next chapter must be written in the language of people, not just portfolios.
What does that look like?
- Targeted social protection: Expand cash transfer programs, fund school feeding initiatives, and subsidise maternal and child healthcare. Let the poor feel seen and supported.
- Inclusive infrastructure: Prioritise rural roads, solar-powered clinics, and agro-logistics hubs. These investments unlock productivity, reduce prices, and connect the disconnected.
- FX savings with a human face: Use the gains from exchange rate reforms to subsidise fertiliser, food staples, and energy for low-income communities, not to finance elite comforts.
- Tax with justice: Progressive taxation must guide implementation. Widen the tax net without trapping the poor. Compliance will grow when citizens feel value, not just a burden.
These are not radical ideas. They are common sense. And they are urgently needed.
What Nigeria needs now is a new metric for progress, a dashboard that measures not just inflation and debt service, but food affordability, school enrolment, maternal survival, job creation, and public trust.
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Reforms must walk into the lives of citizens and make a difference that can be felt. Only then will they be real. Only then will they be trusted. Only then will they be sustainable.
Because in the end, data without dignity is noise. But when policy meets people, when children are fed, when farmers are safe, when workers can earn and dream again, that is the true revolution.
Nigeria does not lack brilliance. What it needs now is a balance between numbers and humanity, growth and equity, and reform and relief.
Mr. President, Ministers, Governors: in H2 2025, let us not just chase economic targets. Let us restore lives.
That is the only metric that truly matters.
