Mama Kemi now skips breakfast so that her children can eat lunch. Her tricycle-driver husband spends N7,000 daily on fuel that cost N1,500 when President Bola Tinubu took office. Not long ago, she pulled her eight-year-old daughter from private school because fees doubled and garri costs more than minimum wage.
In Oyo, a grainy phone video shows toddlers crying in the bush. Their teachers, abducted from Baptist Nursery and Primary School in May, beg President Tinubu and Governor Seyi Makinde to negotiate their release. One teacher has already been beheaded on camera.
Three years after Tinubu declared “fuel subsidy is gone” and promised ‘Renewed Hope’, this is what power feels like for many Nigerians: petrol above N1,200, food prices out of reach, debt at N159tn, and 35 million people staring at hunger.
The question cutting through the noise at Tinubu’s midpoint is brutal and simple. What will Nigerians remember – renewed hope, or rising pain?
When Tinubu took the oath on May 29, 2023, he inherited a fractured economy and a weary nation. Inflation was biting, kidnappings had become routine, and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s naira redesign had left citizens queueing for cash they could not touch. He promised a break from the past: economic recovery, security, jobs, and a stable naira. ‘Renewed Hope’ was the slogan. ‘Emi Lokan’ – “It is my turn” – was the subtext. To supporters, it was a reward for years of political groundwork. To critics, it was the sound of elite entitlement. Either way, he won a bruising election that ended in court, with the Supreme Court sealing his mandate. Three years later, that mandate is being audited not in chambers, but on the streets.
The audit starts with his first words in office: “Fuel subsidy is gone.” With that sentence, Tinubu detonated a policy landmine that previous presidents had circled for decades. Petrol jumped from N185 to N500 overnight, then to N900 in 2024. In some cities, it now sells above N1,200. Transport fares tripled. Food prices followed. Because Nigeria imports refined fuel, the naira’s collapse after exchange-rate unification poured more gasoline on the fire. Every devaluation made the next litre costlier. The government argued it was saving trillions for infrastructure and stopping a fiscal bleed. Households felt it as a direct hit to their pots, their commutes, and their children’s school runs.
To plug the hole, Tinubu’s team pushed aggressive fiscal reforms. Tax bills meant to widen the revenue net were passed in 2025 despite public anger over the timing.
The logic was sound: Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio is among the world’s lowest, and debt was eating the budget. But the debt still ballooned. From N87.38tn in 2023, public debt hit N121.67tn by Q1 2024, N149.39tn by Q1 2025, and crossed N152tn mid-year. By 2026, estimates put it between N153tn and N159tn. Depreciation and fresh borrowing drove the surge. So, while Abuja preached discipline, Nigerians saw prices rise, wages stagnate, and the national IOU deepen. Reform, for many, became another word for hardship.
On the streets, the numbers bleed.
The hardship is not abstract. National Bureau of Statistics data shows inflation stayed brutally high through Tinubu’s first three years. Food inflation hit hardest. Garri, rice, beans – staples once within reach of daily-wage earners – now force families to cut meals or trade down to less nutritious alternatives. Real wages have not kept pace. Parents are pulling children from private schools. Transport unions hike fares weekly. The World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update says poverty rose from 56% in 2023 to 63% in 2025. That is roughly 140 million Nigerians living below the national poverty line. UN agencies warn 35 million more could face acute hunger by 2026, especially in the North-East and North-West, where farms lie abandoned to bandits.
Economic reform landed in a country already under siege. Conflict data tracker ACLED recorded 44,779 deaths from violence between 2015 and 2023 – about 25 killed daily. Under Tinubu, the carnage has not stopped. Development partners estimate over 10,000 people were killed in his first two years alone. Kidnappings surged. In early 2026, over 1,100 people were abducted. The video from Oyo is no outlier. On May 15, gunmen hit three schools in Oriire LGA – Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota, Community Grammar School and L.A. Primary School in Esiele. Pupils and teachers were marched into the bush. One school official was killed. One teacher was beheaded on camera. Toddlers were beaten. Their colleagues begged Tinubu and Governor Seyi Makinde to negotiate. It exposed the same cruel dilemma: force-led rescues risk lives, but paying ransoms feeds the industry. Three years in, Nigerians are still waiting for a security plan that works.
As hardship and insecurity bite, democracy is on edge while faith in institutions is fraying. In February 2026, hundreds marched on the National Assembly to protest proposed changes to the Electoral Act that would weaken real-time electronic transmission of results. Civil society, labour, and opposition groups saw it as a rollback of transparency. Lawmakers ignored them. At the party level, APC primaries sparked fresh outrage after videos showed fights over delegate lists and disputed vote counts. The ruling party insists that due process was followed. The public sees familiar scripts. Tinubu’s government says fuel subsidy removal and fiscal resets were an unavoidable surgery to save a dying economy. The finance minister and CBN speak of fiscal discipline and investor confidence. But on the street, the question is simpler: where is the relief? Three years on, ‘Renewed Hope’ is being weighed against empty pots, mass abductions, and a N159tn debt burden. The verdict is not in court. It is in how Nigerians live.
The reform fatigue has set in. And this is because three years of sacrifice without visible relief must have a name: and that name is ‘reform fatigue’. Tinubu’s defenders point to macro wins – unified exchange rates, subsidy savings, tax law overhaul, and a bid to woo investors. But macro wins do not feed children. The administration says it had to take bitter medicine to avoid fiscal collapse. That may be true. Yet the dosage and the timing have left millions sicker. NBS data confirms what markets already know: headline inflation cooled slightly in 2025, but the base is so high that food remains out of reach. The currency found some stability, but only after it lost over 70 per cent of its value since 2023. Fuel deregulation ended arbitrage, but it also ended affordability. For the trader in Nyanya and the farmer in Zamfara, Renewed Hope now reads like a promissory note with no due date.
The accountability gap continues to widen.
The communication gulf between Aso Rock and the street is growing. When debt jumps from N87.38tn to N159tn in 36 months, citizens ask what they got for it. When 10,000 are killed and 1,100 kidnapped in months, they ask where the security dividend is. When Electoral Act amendments chip at real-time result transmission, they ask who benefits from opacity. The government’s answer has been consistent: these are legacy problems, and reform is painful but necessary. The public’s counter is just as consistent: we were promised relief, not endless transition. At three years, the administration owns both the reforms and the results. It can no longer blame Buhari’s hangover. The midpoint is when ownership becomes total.
The verdict is still open, but time is running out.
History does not remember intentions. It remembers outcomes. Tinubu still has four years to turn metrics into meals, policies into peace, and slogans into substance. The tax reforms could expand revenue for schools and hospitals. Exchange-rate stability could tame import inflation. State policing, if passed, could claw back ungoverned spaces. But that is the future. The present is Mama Kemi skipping breakfast, teachers buried or begging from the bush, and 140 million Nigerians classified as poor. The 2027 elections will be the final exam. Until then, the defining tension of Tinubu’s presidency remains unchanged: ‘Renewed Hope’ versus rising pain. Right now, pain is winning. The clock is not just ticking for re-election. It is ticking for relevance.
What happens next defines the legacy.
The next 12 months are Tinubu’s last chance to shift the narrative before the campaign season swallows policy. Food must get cheaper. The naira must hold. Schools must be safe. If not, ‘Renewed Hope’ risks becoming a historical footnote – a slogan that promised much and delivered pain. Nigerians have paid the price of reform in cash, in blood, and in trust. They are now demanding the dividends.
2027 will not be won with press releases. It will be won, or lost, in Mama Kemi’s kitchen, in the classrooms of Oriire, and in the market stalls where garri now costs more than dignity.
The Verdict: Three years in, the pain is documented. The hope is still delayed.
*Bottom Line: You cannot ask a nation to endure if it cannot see the end. After three years, Nigerians are still looking for hope in the ‘Renewed Hope.’
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