When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, many Nigerians expected tough reforms. They also expected those reforms to produce shared benefits. What has emerged is different. His economic policies now look anti-utilitarian because they impose pain on the majority without clear relief, especially when judged against utilitarianism’s famous moral test.
Jeremy Bentham, a famous economist, argued that government should seek the greatest good for the greatest number. Another renowned economist, John Stuart Mill, later deepened that idea by tying welfare to dignity and quality of life. Judged by that standard, Tinubu’s reforms have failed many ordinary Nigerians. The contradiction becomes even sharper when placed beside the ruling APC’s own progressive identity.
A party that calls itself progressive should naturally protect broad public welfare. Its founding figures, including Bola Tinubu, Muhammadu Buhari, Bisi Akande, and other merger leaders, built the party as a progressive alternative to the PDP. That progressive label should mean policies that reduce suffering, not policies that multiply it. This is the same moral ground on which Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s progressive politics still stands.
Awolowo understood progressivism in a utilitarian sense. His emphasis on free education, public health, social welfare, and human development sought broad benefit for ordinary people. Awolowo’s politics treated government as a tool for lifting the many, not protecting the few. That legacy makes today’s economic pain even harder to defend.
The removal of fuel subsidy came suddenly. It pushed transport fares, food prices, and business costs beyond what many families could bear. The floating of the naira added another burden. Prices rose faster than wages, leaving many Nigerians poorer in real terms. The hardship is not abstract because Nigeria’s headline inflation rose to 15.69 percent in April 2026, while food inflation reached 16.06 percent.
Petrol that sold around ₦206 per litre before Tinubu now sells between ₦900 and ₦1,200 in many places. That single change has reshaped transport, food prices, school fees, rent, and small business survival. Some officials may point to falling inflation as evidence of improvement, but Nigeria is not experiencing real deflation. Prices are not returning to their old levels.
They are only rising more slowly than before, which economists call disinflation. For ordinary Nigerians, slower inflation does not erase the pain of food, fuel, transport, rent, and school fees that already climbed beyond reach. Nigeria also remains home to one of the world’s largest multidimensional poverty populations. Transparency International’s corruption perception rankings continue to place Nigeria among countries battling deep institutional corruption.
Many Nigerians therefore question why ordinary citizens must suffer while corruption and waste remain visible. These social indicators make the policy pain even harder to defend. Tinubu argued that subsidy removal was necessary because Nigeria could not keep spending the future of unborn generations. Yet borrowing approvals have continued, including a plan exceeding $21 billion.
Nigeria may also spend about $11.6 billion servicing debt in 2026, almost half of projected government revenue. This borrowing contradiction weakens the moral defense of the reforms. Tinubu’s recent statement in Kigali made the situation worse. He defended the reforms while admitting they would bring hardship.
A leader can make difficult decisions, but he must not sound unmoved by citizens’ suffering. To many Nigerians, that tone was not courage; it was heartless. William Jennings Bryan’s famous warning against the gold standard speaks to this moment. In 1896, he declared, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
That warning fits any economic policy that protects abstract fiscal targets while ordinary people carry unbearable pain. Nigeria’s reforms must not become a cross of fuel, debt, inflation, and hunger placed on the backs of the poor. The poor are told to sacrifice today while government excesses remain visible at the top. Reform without visible restraint from leadership weakens public trust.
Policies that deepen hardship without sufficient protection cannot serve the greatest good for the greatest number. They cannot be called progressive simply because they are defended with bold language. They must be judged by how they affect ordinary people. On that test, asking Nigerians to suffer more while government excesses continue is painfully difficult to justify.
Abidemi Adebamiwa is the Managing Editor @ Newspot Nigeria.
