Nigeria’s Real Emergency Is No Longer Just the Economy — It Is Trust!
By Jerry Adesewo
There is something increasingly unsettling about Nigeria in 2026. Almost every week brings a new announcement suggesting that the country is turning a corner, and almost every week another development reminds citizens why they remain unconvinced. The government says the economy is stabilising; households complain that food and transport remain painfully expensive. The government announces new security strategies; families continue to wait for abducted children to return home. Politicians sign peace agreements and launch campaigns; citizens wonder whether the political class has finally understood the depth of their frustration.
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The problem, therefore, is no longer simply that Nigeria has an economic crisis, a security crisis, or a political crisis. The deeper crisis is trust, which may ultimately prove the most important issue as the country moves toward the 2027 elections.
The Tinubu administration deserves credit for taking economic decisions that previous governments repeatedly postponed. The removal of the fuel subsidy and the reform of the foreign-exchange system were painful interventions. Still, government officials argue that they prevented an even deeper fiscal crisis, improved public finances, and helped attract investment. Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele recently maintained that the reforms helped avert a possible economic collapse.
But this is where government must understand the difference between economic recovery on paper and economic recovery in the lives of citizens.
A government can point to improved revenues, stronger reserves, or increased investor confidence. The ordinary Nigerian looks at the price of rice, transport fares, rent, school fees, electricity, and medical bills. That is the economic dashboard that matters to him or her.
Reuters reports that nearly 80 percent of Nigerians surveyed believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, with economic hardship and insecurity among their principal concerns. GDP per capita has also fallen sharply over the past decade, while public debt has expanded dramatically.
These numbers should worry the government more than opposition rhetoric does.
The same is true of security. Nigeria cannot continue to describe insecurity as something being “contained” when families are still protesting months after their children were abducted. In Borno, relatives of children taken from schools in May recently took to the streets after nearly 100 days without meaningful resolution. Other children abducted in June also remain missing.
A country that cannot guarantee that children will return home from school has a security problem that cannot be solved by statistics alone.
The federal government has now ordered another major review of the national security architecture, including the preparation of a five-year defence strategy. That is welcome. But Nigeria has had strategies before. What Nigerians need is not another beautifully written security document sitting on a shelf. They need results on the ground.
There is another troubling number that deserves attention: states reportedly spent more than ₦252 billion on security-related activities in the first six months of 2026. If governments at every level are spending this much simply trying to keep citizens and communities safe, we must ask a bigger question about the sustainability of the Nigerian state.
And then there is governance itself.
The recent discovery of another allegedly fake government agency operating from a government office should embarrass every Nigerian institution involved in public administration. President Tinubu has ordered an investigation, and senior officials have reportedly been suspended. But the more disturbing question is how such an institution could operate within the government system in the first place.
This is precisely why trust matters.
Citizens are being asked to sacrifice. They are being asked to accept higher taxes, higher prices, and difficult reforms because government says the sacrifice is necessary to build a better country. That argument can only survive if citizens believe that those managing the sacrifice are themselves disciplined, transparent, and accountable.
You cannot ask a struggling family to tighten its belt while the government appears careless with public resources.
This is also why the unfolding 2027 political season should be about more than personalities, endorsements, defections, and elaborate campaign rallies. The presidential campaign has now begun, and the ruling APC enters the contest with enormous political strength. Thirty-one of Nigeria’s 36 governors are now members of the party, while the opposition remains deeply divided.
But political dominance is not the same thing as public confidence.
The coming election should therefore become a national audit. President Tinubu should not merely ask Nigerians to remember where the country was in 2023. He should tell them where the country is going in 2027 and how he intends to get there.
The opposition, too, must do better than simply telling Nigerians that the government has failed. Nigerians deserve to know what alternative economic programme, security strategy, and governance model they are offering.
This is where the electorate must also rise to the occasion.
We cannot continue to vote simply because a candidate is from our region, speaks our language, belongs to our religion, or has distributed money during an election. The country has reached the point where sentiment has become too expensive.
The question before every candidate should be brutally simple: Can you make Nigeria safer, cheaper to live in, more productive, and more accountable?
And the question before every voter should be equally simple: Show me the evidence. Nigeria does not need another season of promises without measurement. It needs leaders prepared to publish targets and return to the people to explain what they achieved.
The President has said his reforms are beginning to restore stability. His critics say Nigerians are poorer and less secure. Both sides cannot simply shout at each other. The country needs evidence. That is why the greatest political reform Nigeria can make before 2027 may not be another constitutional amendment or another political realignment. It may simply be a culture of accountability.
Government must explain. Opposition must propose. Citizens must question. Institutions must investigate. The media must scrutinise. And voters must remember.
Nigeria has survived economic shocks, military rule, insurgency, corruption scandals, and political crises. What it may struggle to survive is a complete collapse of citizens’ belief that their government is acting in their interest.
The 2027 election should therefore not merely determine who occupies Aso Rock. It should answer a much larger question: Can Nigeria rebuild the trust between government and the governed? Because when that trust returns, reforms become easier, sacrifice becomes bearable, and democracy becomes meaningful.
Without it, even the best policy will be received with suspicion. And that may be Nigeria’s most urgent crisis today.