There comes a time when silence becomes complicity. Nigeria has reached that time. Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the country has descended into a moral and economic abyss so deep that even those who once defended his “reformist courage” now whisper the truth: this administration is not fixing Nigeria; it is feasting on its ruins. When Emir Mohammed Sanusi II rebuked President Tinubu’s claim that he “inherited a dilapidated Nigeria,” he merely gave voice to what millions already know: the extravagance amidst national hunger; the rot Nigerians now endure is not inherited; it is manufactured.
How does a president who pleads poverty justify ₦21 billion to renovate the Vice President’s residence, ₦70 billion for SUVs for lawmakers, ₦225 billion for a new presidential jet, ₦5 billion for a presidential yacht, and billions more for foreign junkets and luxury refurbishments? These are not the decisions of a man cleaning the nation’s wounds; they are the indulgences of a monarch drunk on borrowed wealth.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian worker cannot afford fuel to reach work, the farmer cannot transport produce to the market, and the youth cannot see a future in the land of their birth. Senators now earn ₦21 million monthly, House members ₦13.5 million, while the minimum wage stagnates and inflation devours the poor. Avaritia est radix malorum – greed is the root of all evil.
Tinubu’s signature policy – the abrupt removal of fuel subsidies – was heralded as a bold step toward economic prudence. Instead, it became a weapon of mass impoverishment. Fuel costs have tripled, food prices have exploded, and transport fares are strangling small businesses. The government promised that subsidy savings would be redirected to infrastructure and welfare. Nigerians have seen neither. Instead, what they see are new ministries, endless foreign trips, and the largest cabinet in Nigerian history; a swollen bureaucracy feeding on the nation’s marrow. Lex prospicit, non respicit – the law looks forward, not backward. Leadership, too, must look forward, but Tinubu’s administration gazes inward, consumed by greed and patronage.
The ₦15 trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, allegedly awarded without due process to Tinubu’s long-time associate, Gilbert Chagoury, symbolizes everything rotten in the Nigerian state. A project of staggering cost, shrouded in opacity, justified by propaganda is cronyism as statecraft at its worst.
What of the Oronsaye Report, which urged streamlining of ministries and agencies to reduce costs? Tinubu ignored it and instead created new bureaucracies, among them, a Ministry of Livestock Development, while citizens are being slaughtered by poverty and insecurity. Where are the savings from subsidy removal? Where is the transparency in fiscal management? Where are the reforms promised to restore dignity to the naira? What Nigerians see instead is a government at war with arithmetic; one that spends as though it were printing eternity.
This economic free fall is not theoretical; it is visceral; the human cost of policy without conscience. Over 130 million Nigerians now live in multidimensional poverty; inflation exceeds 30%, erasing salaries overnight; food insecurity has reached record levels; families are skipping meals; insecurity festers, from Kaduna to Zamfara, while officials travel with convoys larger than battalions. Nigeria’s inflation reached a 30-year high in 2025, with food prices up by over 40%. The naira continues to fall despite Central Bank interventions. Unemployment and insecurity remain acute, while the cost of governance has soared under Tinubu’s administration. Critics, including former Emir Mohammed Sanusi II, economists, and civil society groups, have accused the government of fiscal indiscipline and lack of transparency. The presidency insists that reforms are “painful but necessary,” but for millions of Nigerians, the pain has long eclipsed the promise.
Tinubu’s “Renewed Hope” has curdled into Renewed Hopelessness – a slogan now spoken with bitterness in motor parks, markets, and classrooms. A leader who cannot feel the hunger of his people has already lost the moral right to govern them. As Emir Sanusi rightly said, “Leaders are getting richer. Citizens are getting poorer.”
Nigeria’s tragedy is not the absence of resources but the absence of restraint. A government that spends billions on yachts and jets cannot credibly ask its citizens for sacrifice. Tinubu’s defenders chant “bold reforms,” yet boldness without wisdom is recklessness, and policy without empathy is cruelty disguised as governance. The Constitution recognizes no “Office of the First Lady,” yet ₦1.5 billion was allocated for her vehicles. Judges received 300% salary increases, while teachers go unpaid. The poor are told to tighten their belts while the elite loosen theirs around imported banquets. This is not governance; it is gluttony in a government of waste and want
Salus populi suprema lex esto – the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law. But in Tinubu’s Nigeria, that law has been inverted: the comfort of the rulers has become the supreme aim, and the people have been sentenced to hardship without trial. The social contract, which binds ruler and ruled, is fraying. When the governed begin to see governance as organized theft, legitimacy collapses. The line between government and predation blurs, and the republic begins to rot from within.
Mr. President, history will not remember the excuses – only the evidence. You did not inherit a broken Nigeria; you are breaking it. You did not inherit despair; you are deepening it. And you did not inherit a nation of beggars; you are creating one. A presidency that confuses motion with progress and waste with governance cannot endure. Leadership demands sacrifice, not self-celebration. If there is any integrity left in the Nigerian state, this trajectory must be reversed – not tomorrow, but today. For as the Latin jurists remind us, Fiat justitia ruat caelum – let justice be done, though the heavens fall. The heavens are already trembling over Nigeria; it is justice that must now stand.