Tinubunomics and the tyranny of time

There is a quiet irony unfolding in Nigeria today.

The Naira is more stable than it was two years ago. Foreign reserves have improved. The foreign exchange market is less chaotic. International financial institutions are beginning to speak of Nigeria with cautious optimism. Investors who once recoiled at policy uncertainty are again paying attention.

However, optimism is scarce in the markets of Lagos, Kano, Aba, and Ibadan.

Food prices remain painfully high. Transport fares continue to punish workers and traders. Small businesses are struggling with weak consumer demand and high borrowing costs. Families increasingly measure prosperity by what they cannot afford to buy.

This contradiction is at the heart of what has come to be known as Tinubunomics—the bold and controversial economic reforms championed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

It is also the source of a troubling question:

Can reforms that make sense economically survive if their benefits arrive too slowly for the people expected to bear their costs?

The answer may determine not only the fate of Tinubunomics but also the political future of the administration itself.

To be fair, the logic behind the reforms is difficult to dispute.

Fuel subsidies had become fiscally unsustainable, swallowing resources that could have been invested in infrastructure, health and education. Multiple exchange rates created distortions, encouraged arbitrage and undermined investor confidence. Government revenues remained inadequate while debt obligations mounted.

Nigeria was operating an economic model that many economists considered impossible to sustain indefinitely.

Something had to give.

The Tinubu administration made the decision to directly address these distortions. Fuel subsidies were removed. The foreign exchange market was liberalised. Monetary policy was tightened. Government began pursuing tax and revenue reforms with greater vigour.

The pain was immediate.

The expectation was that the gains would follow.

There is evidence that some of those gains are beginning to materialise.

The Naira, though not entirely insulated from shocks, is more stable. Confidence in the foreign exchange market has improved. Arbitrage opportunities have reduced. International financial institutions have praised aspects of the reforms. Credit rating agencies are gradually revising their outlooks.

These are not cosmetic achievements.

They are important building blocks of macroeconomic stability.

But economics has a cruel habit of separating statistical progress from human experience.

For the average Nigerian, the economy is not measured by sovereign ratings or reserve adequacy.

It is measured by the price of rice.

The cost of transportation.

School fees.

Electricity bills.

The ability to save.

The confidence to plan for tomorrow.

And by these standards, hardship remains pervasive.

This is why the celebration of macroeconomic gains often rings hollow.

A stable currency without affordable living is a narrow victory.

Inflation, particularly food inflation, has become the daily referendum on government policy.

The reasons are structural.

Insecurity continues to disrupt farming communities. Transportation and logistics remain expensive. Electricity supply is unreliable. Production costs are high. Businesses pass these costs to consumers, who are already burdened by declining purchasing power.

Thus, even when the exchange rate stabilises, prices do not immediately retreat.

The result is a paradox.

Macroeconomic indicators improve.

Social realities remain stubborn.

The disconnect is neither accidental nor unique to Nigeria.

History is replete with examples of governments that embarked on technically sound reforms only to discover that economics and politics obey different clocks.

Nigeria itself knows this story.

The Structural Adjustment Programme of the mid-1980s was conceived as a response to economic distortions. It promised efficiency, competitiveness and long-term growth. Some of its objectives were economically defensible.

But for many Nigerians, SAP became synonymous with hardship.

Its social costs overwhelmed its intellectual rationale.

The lesson was not that reforms are inherently bad.

The lesson was that reforms succeed only when societies believe that sacrifice has a destination.

That lesson remains relevant today.

Tinubunomics is not SAP.

The historical contexts are different.

The global economy is different.

Nigeria itself is different.

But one question echoes across generations:

How long can citizens endure pain before they begin to doubt the promise of prosperity?

This is where the debate moves beyond economics and enters the realm of political reality.

Governments are rarely defeated by difficult decisions.

They are more often undone by their inability to convince citizens that difficult decisions are producing meaningful results.

This is the tyranny of time.

Economic reforms are slow-moving enterprises.

Politics is impatient.

Economists may argue that structural reforms require years to mature. Citizens grappling with high living costs think with shorter horizons.

They ask:

Is my life improving?

Can I feed my family more easily?

Am I more hopeful today than I was yesterday?

If the answers remain uncertain, patience begins to erode.

This is why complacency would be dangerous.

If a government assumes that macroeconomic stabilisation will automatically translate into social satisfaction, it may be making a profound miscalculation.

Citizens are not indifferent to statistics.

They simply prioritise experience.

A stronger Naira matters.

Lower inflation matters.

Fiscal discipline matters.

But people ultimately judge governments by outcomes they can touch and feel.

Food on the table.

Electricity in their homes.

Jobs that pay decently.

Businesses that can survive.

Communities that are safe.

Without these, economic narratives risk becoming detached from reality.

This is the central tension confronting Tinubunomics.

It may succeed economically before it succeeds socially.

It may receive praise from investors while attracting scepticism from citizens.

It may avert economic collapse and still struggle to inspire political confidence.

And that would be a tragedy.

Because reforms are not judged solely by their intentions.

They are judged by whether ordinary people can trace a line between sacrifice and improvement.

The administration therefore faces a race against time.

Food inflation must be tackled aggressively. Security in farming communities must improve. Infrastructure bottlenecks must be addressed. Social protection must become more credible and transparent.

Equally important, government must communicate with humility.

Triumphalism is a poor companion to hardship.

Citizens are more likely to support difficult reforms when leaders acknowledge pain honestly and articulate realistic pathways to relief.

The challenge before Tinubunomics is therefore not whether reforms were necessary.

Many of them were.

The challenge is whether their benefits can become sufficiently visible before public patience wears thin.

Nigeria today is no longer standing at the edge of an economic cliff.

But it is crossing a bridge still under construction.

The old order has been dismantled.

The new order is yet to fully emerge.

Tinubunomics is, in many ways, a wager.

A wager that Nigerians will endure today’s pain for tomorrow’s prosperity.

A wager that macroeconomic gains will eventually become social gains.

A wager that hope will outlast hardship.

The tragedy would not be that the reforms fail.

The tragedy would be if they succeed technically but arrive too late to convince the people whose sacrifices made them possible.

For in the final analysis, the greatest opponent of Tinubunomics may not be inflation.

It may not be the opposition.

It may not even be global economic uncertainty.

It may simply be time.

And therein lies the tyranny of time.

Ogundipe, public affairs analyst and former president of the Nigerian and African Unions of Journalists, writes from Abuja.