The economy and the battlefield for 2027

There is a number that captures something important about Nigeria’s economic mood today. This is the cost of an ordinary shopping basket. For instance, at the start of the Buhari administration in January 2016, a kilogramme of imported rice sold for about N239 and by the end of his government in May 2023, the price climbed to N793, a 231 per cent rise. Since Tinubu took office in May 2023, a kilogramme of imported rice surged to over N2,255 by October 2025, representing an additional 184 per cent rise in just over two years. In 2020, a basket of groceries was bought at N25,225 and in 2026 it costs N147,050, an increase of about 582 per cent. Although these comparisons are not an official measure of inflation, but their significance give us an idea on how it translates an abstract economic crisis into the language of the household.

That is why I think for the ruling party and the opposition, the economy is emerging as one of the central battlefields of the 2027 election. This is not necessarily because the political parties have chosen it as their preferred campaign subject, but because Nigerians encounter government policy most directly through the price of food, petrol, transportation, electricity, rent and other essentials. For millions of households, economic policy is no longer something discussed only by economists and policymakers. It is experienced every morning in the market, at the filling station, in the transport fare and at the dinner table.

The debate over the economy is no longer about the necessity of the reforms introduced by the present administration but it is about whether Nigerians are beginning to experience the benefits of those reforms after bearing their costs for more than three years. This is important, because governments govern through policies, but as Nigerians, who these policies affect, we judge those policies through their consequences in our everyday life.

The Tinubu administration has a substantial macroeconomic argument to make. The National Bureau of Statistics reported headline inflation at 15.39 per cent in August 2026, while food inflation stood at 19.57 per cent. The figures represent a significant slowdown in the pace of price increases compared with the much higher rates recorded previously. The government can also point to improved revenue mobilisation, greater stability in the foreign-exchange market and its broader argument that difficult reforms are beginning to correct structural weaknesses in the Nigerian economy.

Yet the improvement in the rate of inflation does not mean that the prices Nigerians face have returned to their previous levels. Inflation falling is not the same as prices falling. Disinflation is not deflation. If the price of bread rises more slowly this year after rising dramatically in previous years, bread has not become cheaper; it has simply become more expensive at a slower rate. For households whose incomes have not kept pace with these increases, the distinction may make sense on paper, but it does little to reflect the reality of their daily lives.

This is the gap between the macroeconomic story and the lived experiences of many households in Nigeria today. Even though a government appointee can point to declining inflation as evidence of progress, many households are still struggling to decide which items to remove from their shopping list. Both realities exist at the same time. For the government to claim its economic policies are working and macroeconomic stabilisation becomes politically meaningful then they have to produce improvements that citizens can recognise in their own economic circumstances.

The petrol market provides perhaps the clearest illustration of this tension. The 2026 federal budget was built around a crude-oil price benchmark of $64.85 per barrel and production of 1.84 million barrels per day. International crude prices have since moved substantially above that benchmark, as it is now $100.94, creating the possibility of higher oil earnings while Nigerians continue to confront high petrol prices. When the US/Israel war on Iran started on February 28 oil prices were below $70 a barrel, but today oil prices have continued to soar, selling for above $120 at some point. Brent traded at $110 per barrel, and Bonny Light, Nigeria’s flagship crude, traded at $134.

The situation in the international oil market is likely to change the petroleum subsidy debate from “restore petrol subsidy” or what Nigerians pay at the pump to the broader questions of fiscal management, public expenditure and the distribution of the benefits of economic reform. The government has a strong argument against a simplistic return to the old subsidy regime. Subsidies consume public resources, can be poorly targeted and have historically created opportunities for arbitrage and rent-seeking. Reintroducing them without a credible financing mechanism could weaken the fiscal improvements the government says it has worked to achieve and potentially intensify pressure on the naira and inflation. But the existence of these constraints does not remove the government’s obligation to demonstrate how citizens are to be protected from the immediate consequences of these harsh reforms.

Therefore, the government cannot simply point to domestic refining and assume that Nigerians will automatically experience cheaper petrol. Equally, opposition politicians cannot promise that domestic refining alone will make petrol cheap without explaining the cost of crude feedstock, refinery economics, market pricing and the fiscal consequences of government intervention. The electorate is likely to hear competing promises, but the more consequential contest will be over which side can explain the economics behind those promises more convincingly.

The disagreements among opposition figures over fuel subsidy illustrate another problem. Atiku Abubakar, the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate, has advocated restoring subsidy, while Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, has taken a different position, arguing that subsidy removal should not simply be reversed. Their differences reflect a wider difficulty within the opposition.

The same problem extends beyond fuel. Any serious alternative programme will have to explain how it intends to manage the exchange rate, increase domestic production, expand social protection, address energy costs, manage public debt, reform taxation and create employment while maintaining fiscal sustainability. The attraction of a political promise is easy to measure at a rally; its affordability is measured in the budget.

This makes the battle over the economy almost as important as the economic statistics themselves. The administration is likely to present the reforms as necessary corrections to structural distortions that accumulated over many years and argue that stabilisation must precede prosperity. While the opposition will focus more heavily on the human cost of the adjustment process and the extent to which government policies have protected citizens from that cost. Both narratives will compete for the same voter whose immediate concern is less about the technical language of macroeconomic reform than what a given amount of money can buy.

Insecurity, agricultural productivity, transportation costs, access to markets, electricity supply and distance from production centres all influence what consumers eventually pay. A national inflation figure can tell an important story about the economy while concealing substantial differences in how that economy is experienced across communities. A campaign built entirely around national averages risks missing the economic pressures that are most politically salient at the local level.

This is particularly important for northern Nigeria, where the relationship between insecurity, agricultural production and food prices is especially consequential. Where insecurity disrupts farming, displaces producers or makes transportation more expensive, the effect does not stop at the farm. It travels through the entire supply chain and eventually reaches the consumer. The price of food can therefore become a reflection not only of monetary policy but also of security, infrastructure, agricultural productivity and market access.

For the government, the challenge is to demonstrate that the sacrifices associated with reform are producing tangible results and to explain clearly how additional public revenues are being used. For the opposition, the challenge is to present an alternative that goes beyond the language of hardship and identifies precisely what would be changed, what it would cost, how it would be financed and when citizens could reasonably expect to see results.

The economic debate of 2027 may consequently have little to do with which politician can produce the most impressive statistic or the most attractive campaign promise. It will centre on whether political parties can connect their economic claims to the realities of the market, the filling station, the workplace and the household. Nigerians have heard promises of sacrifice before. What they will increasingly demand is evidence of what that sacrifice has produced, what remains to be endured and whether the proposed route offers a credible path towards a more affordable and productive economy.