By Oluwafemi Adekoya

The arguments for Nigeria’s reforms are unending and justifiable, but necessity cannot become an excuse for endless pain. Nearly three and a half years after the removal of the petrol subsidy and the unification of the exchange-rate regime, millions of households are still paying the price for decisions taken in the name of fiscal discipline. The question out there is simply: when will the fiscal gains end everyday pain? With less than 100 days to the 2027 elections, Nigerians are still being asked to endure the pains for the “reform gains.” Will these gains deliver a visible, predictable and inclusive relief system for ordinary Nigerians?

On Monday, a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) showed that an additional 17.9 million Nigerians fell into multidimensional poverty between 2021 and 2024, the highest increase recorded by any country globally.

“In absolute terms, the largest increase in the number of poor people is seen in Nigeria, where although poverty had decreased in the previous period (2018–2021), in the recent period (2021–2024), 17.9 million people became multidimensionally poor, followed by 5.3 million in Afghanistan,” the report stated.

The findings place Nigeria among five countries that recorded increases in multidimensional poverty during their respective assessment periods, alongside Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan. Nigeria has no reason to be ranked among these countries. The development highlights the scale of Nigeria’s poverty challenge, particularly as rising living costs, food insecurity and inadequate access to essential services continue to put pressure on households.

The debate over the recent petrol discount at NNPC Retail stations has reopened an old argument: should government offer a discount, restore a subsidy, or do neither? The more honest question is different. How does a government that has freed up substantial fiscal space protect citizens whose purchasing power has collapsed? A temporary pump discount, useful as it may be, is not a social policy. Nigeria needs a comprehensive cushioning framework—cash support, transport relief, food security, energy access and wage protection—designed before the next shock, not improvised after public anger becomes impossible to ignore.

The burden is real
Since May 2023, the removal of the petrol subsidy has transformed the cost of living. Petrol is not merely a fuel; in Nigeria, it is the lifeblood of transportation, food distribution, small businesses, generators, artisans and public services. When its price rises, the effect travels quickly from the filling station to the market, the classroom, the clinic and the family table. NBS-based reporting shows average petrol prices rising fivefold, from about N238 per litre in May 2023 to roughly N1,350 per litre in 2026.

The World Bank warned early that the reforms would be painful: the end of the petrol subsidy and the move to a market-reflective exchange rate increased retail petrol prices by an average of 163 per cent, while inflation reached 27.3 per cent year-on-year in October 2023. Those figures were not abstract statistics. They meant parents postponing medical care, traders reducing stock, workers spending more of their wages on transport, and families eating fewer, less nutritious meals. Today, many Nigerians have to make difficult choices about necessities.

The government argues that the reforms have raised revenue, stabilised the economy and created room for investment. Even if one accepts that macroeconomic argument, it does not answer the immediate question facing a civil servant, a commercial driver, a market woman or a pensioner: how do they survive until the promised gains reach them? An economy can record growth, higher reserves and improved revenue while its people grow poorer in real terms. That is precisely the political and moral danger Nigeria now faces.

Relief must be targeted, not blanket
The government is right to resist a return to the old blanket petrol subsidy. But rejecting a subsidy is not the same as rejecting relief. The current petrol discount, expected to be seen as a short-term stabiliser, is not a substitute for a credible social compact. One month will make no difference in the lives of many Nigerians already struggling to live.

The sparing discount is limited to NNPC Retail stations and has been extended until the end of October, while the government insists it is not a return to a universal subsidy. That limitation matters: a discount available only through selected stations, apps, or digital channels risks excluding rural dwellers, informal workers, and people without smartphones or reliable Internet access.

Relief must therefore be designed around access, not announcements. A household in a rural community should not need an app to eat. A commercial driver should not have to queue for hours to benefit from a policy meant to reduce transport costs. The government’s own critics have made this point: access hurdles around the petrol discount have been raised by motorists, while civil-society groups have called for transparent cash transfers, transport support and lower food costs.

What a serious relief plan looks like
Nigeria needs a time-bound National Cost-of-Living Relief Programme, coordinated across federal and state governments, with clear eligibility criteria, public dashboards, and independent audits. It should include six practical components.

First, expand and regularise cash transfers. The government says targeted transfers have reached more than 10 million households, and an IMF assessment reportedly found that 9.2 million households were enrolled, against a target of 15 million, with beneficiaries receiving at most three payments of N25,000 since 2023. That is not enough. Payments must be frequent, predictable and adjusted for inflation. A one-off N25,000 payment cannot offset years of rising transport, food and energy costs.

Second, protect low-income workers and small businesses. The new tax laws, which took effect in January 2026, include a zero VAT rate on essential goods, exemptions for small businesses earning under N100 million, and rent relief for eligible taxpayers. These measures can help, but their benefits must be communicated clearly and enforced in markets. Traders should not use tax reform as cover to raise prices.

The government should publish a simple list of zero-rated essentials and monitor retail compliance. The FCCPC is overwhelmed by complaints about price gouging, but its intervention is limited by its own challenges (staff capacity and presence in all states).

Third, invest directly in affordable mass transportation. CNG buses, rail expansion and subsidised student and worker transport schemes would deliver relief every working day. The administration has highlighted CNG deployment as part of its cost-of-living response. But the latest data, as published by The Guardian, reveal less than 15 per cent penetration almost four years later.

Fourth, make food security a national emergency priority. Food inflation hits poor households hardest because they spend a large share of income on necessities. Fifth, support household energy. Petrol discounts help motorists, but many families depend on cooking gas, kerosene, electricity or solar alternatives.

Sixth, protect wages and pensions. Public-sector wage adjustments must keep pace with inflation, and states should not be left behind simply because they receive lower allocations (this has changed for States but not for their workers). Pensioners, who cannot easily return to work, deserve protection. The cost of healthcare in old age is a reality that cannot be ignored. Many pensioners can hardly survive on their pension or get medical care.

Other countries chose their citizens
Nigeria is not the first country to face a global cost-of-living shock. The difference is that many governments treated household protection as an urgent duty, not an afterthought. When energy prices surged after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United Kingdom introduced an Energy Price Guarantee that limited the unit price households paid for gas and electricity. A typical household was protected at around £2,500 per year, with an estimated saving of £1,000 annually; a separate £400 Energy Bill Support Scheme was applied automatically through electricity bills.

The policy was expensive, and its design was later debated, but it gave families certainty during a period of extreme uncertainty. The United Kingdom’s support was also broad and automatic. Most households did not need to apply; the discount appeared directly on bills. That is an important lesson for Nigeria: relief works best when administrative barriers are low, and beneficiaries do not have to navigate opaque portals or patronage networks.

In 2023, the Government of Canada implemented a combination of direct household subsidies, anti-trust competition overhauls, and localised infrastructure investments to lower consumer costs and stabilise the food supply chain. Brazil offers another lesson. Its Bolsa Família programme, one of the world’s largest conditional cash-transfer schemes, was designed to provide immediate poverty alleviation and reduce hunger. During a later iteration, Auxílio Brasil, the minimum benefit was set at R$400 per beneficiary family, and coverage rose sharply from 14.5 million families at the end of 2021 to 21 million in 2022.

Brazil’s experience shows that cash transfers can be scaled quickly when governments treat social protection as core economic infrastructure.

These examples do not suggest that Nigeria should blindly copy foreign policies. Britain and Canada are wealthier, and Brazil’s fiscal context differs. But they demonstrate a principle: when citizens face an external or policy-induced shock, the state has a duty to deliberately, transparently, and at scale cushion them.

Elections should not distort relief
There is a legitimate worry that relief introduced close to elections could become political patronage. If citizens see relief only during campaign season, they will reasonably conclude that it is electoral inducement rather than economic justice. If, however, government builds a durable system now—one that continues regardless of political cycles—it will strengthen both social stability and democratic trust.

A breather, not a retreat
Nigeria does not need a return to the wasteful subsidy regime of the past. But it does need a breather from a reform process whose benefits remain too distant from the people bearing its costs. If the state can find resources to temporarily reduce pump prices, it can find resources to protect food, transport, health, and household incomes more systematically.

The choice before policymakers is not “discount or subsidy.” It is between a relief system that reaches the vulnerable and a political strategy that merely manages anger until votes are counted. Nigerians have endured fuel-price shocks, naira depreciation, food inflation and rising rents. They have been asked to be patient while reforms mature. Patience, however, is not infinite—and it should never be the only social policy available to the poor.

A government confident in its reforms should be worried about an economy that stabilises on paper while ordinary people fall apart in real life. Nigeria’s reforms will only be legitimate when the market woman, the teacher, the driver, the farmer and the pensioner can feel that the state sees their suffering—and acts.