Tinubu, opposition and the politics of blame

Wednesday Column By Egena Sunday Ode

Like many Nigerians, I have always known that the rising cost of living would be a major issue in the unfolding electioneering season. After all, nothing brings politics closer to the dinner table than an empty pot.

What I did not quite anticipate, however, was President Bola Tinubu looking towards the opposition and blaming it for the hunger and poverty Nigerians are experiencing.

That was the message from Kaduna last Saturday, when the President flagged off the APC’s presidential campaign for the 2027 election. “I have an argument. I hear my opponent talking about hunger, poverty. Who created it? They did! They created the hunger, they created the poverty. We are trying to eradicate it,” he declared.

Now, that is quite an argument. Nigerians are struggling with the cost of food, transportation, housing and other necessities, and the President has identified the culprits. They are apparently in the opposition, although it remains unclear how politicians outside the Federal Government determine the prices Nigerians pay in the market.

Perhaps the atmosphere of a campaign rally encouraged such a sweeping declaration. Political gatherings have a way of making complicated matters sound deceptively simple. But when the speaker is the President, the distinction between campaign rhetoric and presidential responsibility matters.

Mr President, Nigerians remember your Independence Day broadcast on October 1. You acknowledged that the reforms introduced by your administration had been difficult and that their side effects were real. You argued that the reforms were necessary to correct longstanding economic distortions and lay the foundation for prosperity. Your conclusion was emphatic: “The age of reform has done its work. Now begins the age of prosperity.”

That was a defensible argument. The removal of petrol subsidy and the move towards a market-driven foreign-exchange regime were presented as difficult but necessary decisions. Your administration maintained that Nigeria could no longer sustain the old arrangements and that citizens would have to endure some pain before the benefits became evident.

But there is a small problem with the Kaduna declaration. Having defended the reforms as your administration’s boldest economic decisions, you cannot now appear to distance yourself from the hardship associated with their implementation. If the reforms are yours when discussing their benefits, surely their consequences cannot suddenly belong to the opposition.

Nobody seriously argues that Nigeria’s economic problems began in May 2023. The country inherited structural weaknesses, poor infrastructure, insecurity, unemployment and years of economic mismanagement. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which governed before the APC took over in 2015, has its own record to defend.

But the APC has also governed Nigeria for more than a decade. It cannot claim credit for every achievement during its years in power while assigning every economic difficulty to its predecessors. Neither can the PDP escape scrutiny simply because it is now in opposition.

Consider the exchange-rate story. In 2015, the naira traded at roughly N196 to the dollar in the official market. By 2023, it had weakened considerably, and subsequent foreign-exchange reforms were followed by further depreciation. For a country dependent on imported goods and production inputs, the implications were obvious. Electronics, machinery, medicines and household appliances became more expensive, while higher fuel and transportation costs added to food prices.

The removal of subsidy may have addressed a genuine fiscal problem, but its consequences for household budgets were equally real. Nigerians were told to endure the pain in anticipation of prosperity. Many are still waiting for that promise to translate into a more affordable basket of food.

This brings to mind the familiar story of military coup-makers. They would seize power, catalogue the sins of the government they had overthrown and promise a new beginning. Before long, some of the same problems would reappear under their own watch, sometimes in worse forms. The kettle would call the pot black, apparently forgetting that both had spent years over the same fire.

Our politicians seem to have learnt something from that tradition. The APC blamed the PDP for Nigeria’s problems; now, when the APC faces criticism, the opposition is accused of creating the hardship Nigerians are experiencing. Meanwhile, the citizen is left wondering when this exchange of accusations will produce cheaper food and better living conditions.

Unsurprisingly, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and other opposition figures pushed back against Tinubu’s remarks. Atiku argued that the APC had governed Nigeria for years and should accept responsibility for its record. The African Democratic Congress (ADC), the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the African Movement of Progressives (AMP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) also provide platforms from which the administration’s economic policies will be challenged. Peter Obi and Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde have likewise featured in the broader debate over the government’s performance and the country’s economic direction.

Their criticisms should be assessed on their merits. Opposition politicians are not automatically right simply because they criticise the government. They, too, must explain how they would tackle the problems they identify.

Atiku’s insistence on revisiting the subsidy policy has, in particular, renewed the debate. Whether reversing the policy is economically sustainable is a legitimate question. A return to an expensive subsidy arrangement without adequate safeguards could recreate old problems. But insisting that a policy must never be reconsidered simply because it has been introduced would be equally unwise. The important questions concern affordability, transparency and whether the present approach is delivering relief to Nigerians.

The stakes are especially high in Northern Nigeria, where insecurity, disrupted farming and economic vulnerability have compounded the pressure on household incomes. For many families, hardship is not an abstract statistic. It is the daily struggle to afford food, transport, school fees and medical bills. A campaign message that appears to dismiss these concerns could prove particularly damaging in a region where the government needs to demonstrate that it understands the depth of public anxiety.

To be fair, Tinubu has consistently defended his reforms as necessary sacrifices on the road to prosperity. In his Independence Day address, he acknowledged that some families still struggled to afford their next meal and that the government needed to bring down the cost of living. That was an important recognition of reality.

But defending a policy is not the same as denying responsibility for its consequences. There is a difference between telling Nigerians that difficult reforms are intended to solve longstanding problems and telling them that the opposition created their hunger.

A worker may receive a salary regularly and still discover that it buys considerably less than it did before. A trader may appreciate improvements in the economy’s direction but struggle with the cost of restocking. Such citizens do not need their complaints dismissed; they need evidence that the promised prosperity is reaching their homes.

Mr President, Nigerians can understand the argument for reform without surrendering their right to question its cost. They can acknowledge the failures of previous administrations while holding the present government accountable. These positions are not contradictory.

As the election approaches, the APC must defend its record, the PDP must answer for its years in power, and newer opposition parties must show that they have credible alternatives. Atiku must explain how his proposed subsidy reversal would work, just as Tinubu must demonstrate why his policies remain the best route to economic relief.

Ultimately, the question is not who can shout loudest about the origins of hunger. It is who can credibly explain how to reduce it.

Hunger has no party card. It does not ask whether a Nigerian voted APC, ADC, NDC or any other party before making its presence felt.

And in a country where even the cost of cooking a pot of soup has become an economic calculation, Nigerians may find one political arrangement particularly difficult to swallow: ownership of the credit, outsourcing of the blame.

That, Mr President, is a reform Nigerians may not be willing to endure.