Nigeria’s Reforms: How Pain Turned Into Progress for Millions
Editor’s note: In this piece, Lekan Olayiwola, a policy analyst on governance and public affairs, shares how Nigeria’s reforms caused real hardship for millions. He also shows where households found relief, began adapting, and saw slow progress in daily life.
CHECK OUT: How to Start Earning with Copywriting in Just 7 Days – Even if You’re a Complete Beginner
For many in Nigeria today, the word reform evokes a mixture of fatigue, scepticism, and hopeful longing. Between late 2023 and mid-2025, a series of bold policy shifts (fuel subsidy removal, foreign exchange unification, fiscal consolidation) precipitated a sharp rise in the cost of living.
Source: UGC
But embedded within this hardship are measurable signs of adjustment, adaptation, and relief. The question is not simply “Was there pain?”, but “Did the pain translate into resilience, breadth of benefit, and sustainable relief?” And crucially, why is this nuanced experience so poorly communicated?
The anatomy of reform pain: 2023–2024
When petrol subsidy removal and exchange-rate unification took effect in mid-2023, the shock to household budgets was immediate and severe. Nigeria’s dependence on imported food staples, fertilisers, and intermediate goods meant that cost pressures rippled through the economy at an alarming speed.
Inflation accelerated sharply across urban and rural areas. For low-income households that spend most of their earnings on food, the impact was devastating. Meals were reduced, children were withdrawn from school for unpaid fees, protein consumption was slashed, and credit from local vendors became a survival mechanism rather than a convenience. Families had to choose between food, rent, medicine, or transport.
Late 2023 through much of 2024 became the raw crucible of real, deeply felt reform pain, and for many, existential. This phase understandably crystallised the dominant public narrative as pain without horizon, hardship without visible end.
2025’s gradual de-escalation
By mid-to-late 2025, however, a more complex picture began to emerge. Prices of key staples recorded sustained declines from their 2024 peaks, signalling that the earlier surge was not necessarily a permanent new baseline.
In granular, everyday terms that reflect how most Nigerians actually shop: a Derica cup of rice, which sold for about ₦600 pre-reform, spiked to roughly ₦1,600 in early 2025 before stabilising closer to ₦1,000 later in the year. Beans that peaked at ₦1,800–₦2,000 per Derica eased toward ₦1,000. A full bottle of palm oil fell from around ₦3,000 to about ₦2,000. Garri declined from ₦2,500–₦3,000 to nearer ₦1,000–₦1,200 in many markets.
For households where every naira is pre-allocated, they represent relative breathing room and also demonstrate that the commodity price shock was not an irreversible upward spiral but a painful spike that began to taper as supply chains adjusted, domestic harvests improved, and markets adapted to a more stable exchange-rate environment. Yet, prices remain far above pre-2023 levels, and non-food costs continue to strain households.
A human face to reform
Alongside easing staple prices, the government introduced fiscal and social interventions aimed, however imperfectly, at cushioning households and restoring productive capacity. Reports say palliative support reached 35 million Nigerians, with plans to expand toward 50 million, a scale rarely attempted in previous reform cycles, though questions remain about targeting and adequacy.
NELFund) disbursed substantial sums to institutions and students. For example, UNAAB reportedly received over ₦840 million, while the University of Lagos received ₦1.33 billion, critical support for families struggling with rising school fees and living costs.
The national minimum wage was raised to ₦70,000, offering some relief to formal-sector workers, even as inflation eroded purchasing power. Federal allocations to states tripled in some periods, enhancing subnational capacity to deliver services and invest in infrastructure. Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio, once exceeding 90 per cent, has eased toward roughly 40–50%, signalling progress in fiscal consolidation and debt sustainability.
These measures do not erase the scars of the shock phase. Savings were wiped out, businesses closed, and household stability fractured. But they mark a shift from reactive crisis management toward tentative structural adaptation.
Uneven geography of experience
Reform has never been experienced uniformly across Nigeria. Urban informal workers in cities like Lagos and Abuja bore the brunt of inflation in transport, rent, and utilities. While easing food prices have helped marginally, high fixed costs continue to dominate household budgets.
Source: UGC
Rural farmers faced an initial squeeze from higher input costs but later benefited from improved yields and greater predictability as exchange-rate volatility eased. Students and parents in states with high tuition burdens saw uneven but tangible benefits from educational funding.
Small traders and market women, often overlooked in macro narratives, absorbed early shocks from currency unification but regained some stability as staple prices stabilised in 2025. Reform, in short, is not a single national event but a differentiated, position-dependent process.
Communication and public perception
Perhaps the most persistent failure of the reform era has been communication. Government messaging leaned heavily on technocratic language and abstract macroeconomic logic, often detached from lived realities. Phrases such as “pain is necessary for rebirth” rang hollow when not paired with credible explanations of who would benefit, how, and when.
This gap produced a profound perception lag. Many citizens struggle to distinguish between ongoing hardship, transitional adjustment, and genuine policy progress. When memories of 2023–2024 suffering dominate and improvements are not meaningfully narrated, the feeling that “nothing has changed” overwhelms public discourse.
Reform fatigue vs reform progress
Even into 2026, reform is widely perceived as a single, unending punishment rather than a sequence of policy phases with varying impacts. This fatigue is legitimate. But it should not entirely eclipse accumulating evidence of gradual relief and institutional shifts.
The decline in staple prices does not restore pre-2023 affordability, but it marks a clear improvement from peak distress. Fiscal discipline and debt reduction, though unpopular, create space for future social investment. Expanded state allocations and education funding build longer-term human capital capacity.
If a man loses both legs and later receives a wheelchair, it is accurate to call that progress; he is mobile again. But he remains a man without legs. For millions of Nigerians, reform inflicted irreversible damage: wiped-out savings, collapsed enterprises, fractured security. To those living this reality, stabilising prices can feel less like recovery and more like a slower version of hardship.
Beyond simplistic narratives
Nigeria’s reform journey defies binaries of success or failure. Meaningful narrative must connect policy to everyday life; distinguish shock from adjustment; highlight regional variation; or explain adaptation beyond the mantra of “pain now, gain later.”
What is needed is a grounded, empathetic discourse that honours the suffering of 2023–2024, situates 2025’s progress in lived experience, interrogates communication failures, and offers hope grounded in evidence rather than nostalgia.
A story of resilience, not repetition
Nigeria’s reform path has been bumpy, contested, and deeply felt. But it is not a linear story of pain without progress. There are real signposts of adaptation and resilience that deserve articulation, even as hardship persists for many.
Reform is a process, not an event. Interpreting it demands nuance, honesty, and moral clarity from policymakers, commentators, journalists, and citizens alike. Only then can Nigerians judge whether this era represents needless suffering or the difficult scaffold of a more stable, inclusive future.
Read also
The cost of neglect: Ifunanya Nwangene and the harsh reality of Nigeria’s healthcare system
Lekan Olayiwola is a public-facing peace & conflict researcher/policy analyst focused on leadership, ethics, governance, and political legitimacy in fragile states.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Legit.ng.
Proofreading by James Ojo, copy editor at Legit.ng.
Source: Legit.ng
