Hector Igbikiowubo
Lagos — Another election season is upon us, and the politicians are back in their natural habitat promising heaven on earth while carefully avoiding any mention of the hell Nigerians currently inhabit.
It’s a familiar ritual. The banners are up, the soundbites are polished, and the campaign buses are rolling. But a cursory glance at the ongoing presidential electioneering campaign reveals a curious omission: the actual issues grinding the average Nigerian into dust have been politely escorted off stage. In their place? A well-worn greatest hits album featuring petroleum subsidy, economic talking points, and the kind of selective amnesia that would make a goldfish blush.
The Subsidy Showdown: Same Script, New Season
Just like the 2023 campaign, petroleum subsidy has returned to front and centre because nothing says “fresh ideas” like recycling a controversy that’s already been thoroughly chewed, swallowed, and spat out.
The ruling APC is defending the subsidy removal with the enthusiasm of a salesman pushing a warranty nobody asked for, touting over ₦16 trillion in “savings.” Meanwhile, the opposition counters that these savings have been about as useful to the average Nigerian as a chocolate teapot.
The numbers, however, are harder to spin. Reports from the World Bank and political figures eagerly citing its data estimate that 50 to 52 million additional Nigerians have been pushed into poverty or now live below the poverty line since President Bola Tinubu assumed office in May 2023.
Opposition figures like Peter Obi and various policy reports note that roughly 87 million Nigerians were impoverished in 2023. By late 2025 and into 2026, World Bank estimates put the total number living below the poverty line at approximately 139 to 140 million, representing roughly 61% to 63% of the country’s population. For those keeping score at home, that’s a country where the majority of citizens are now officially poor, which must be tremendously comforting for the minority who aren’t.
Analysts attribute this meteoric rise in misery to soaring food inflation (surpassing 40% at various points) and the removal of the petrol subsidy alongside exchange rate unification. These policies, we’re told, severely eroded household purchasing power though they did achieve “macroeconomic stabilization and GDP growth,” which is wonderful news for anyone who can afford to eat while reading about it.
The Federal Government and the Presidency have routinely contested these global financial figures, arguing that long-term structural reforms are necessary to stabilize the economy and that short-term hardship metrics do not fully reflect ongoing interventions. In other words: ignore the man behind the curtain, the wizard is busy intervening.
Power to the People? Not Quite
As if the economic situation weren’t bad enough, the current reality regarding electricity supply and distribution across the country can, at best, be described as grave. Power generation remains abysmally low, the transmission grid has collapsed repeatedly, and the distribution grid is nothing to write home about unless you’re writing home to complain, in which case, by all means.
While campaigning in 2023, President Tinubu declared he would ensure 24 hours of power supply if elected, noting that Nigerians wouldn’t suffer estimated billing anymore. He added and this is the part that aged like milk in a heatwave, that if he failed to do these things and returned to campaign for re-election, Nigerians should not vote for him.
Over three years after assuming office, President Tinubu has failed to ensure 24 hours of power supply. Nigerians are still subjected to estimated billing. And yet, here he is, campaigning for re-election with the confidence of a man who either forgot his own promise or assumes the electorate has the memory of a concussed fruit fly.
At the time he assumed office, power generation hovered around 4,000 megawatts. In 2026, generation capacity fluctuated between 5,400 MW and 6,000 MW an increase of roughly 1,400 to 1,700 MW. Progress? Technically. Enough to power a nation of over 200 million people? Not even close. It’s like upgrading from a bicycle to a slightly less rusty bicycle and calling it a transport revolution.
Based on media tracking and industry reports up to early this year, Nigeria’s national power grid has collapsed 22 times since May 2023. Twenty-two. That’s not a grid; that’s a suggestion box.
The Media: Business as Usual
Unfortunately, since the presidential electioneering campaign commenced, both the opposition and the ruling APC have conveniently ignored the debilitating conditions the electricity generation, transmission, and distribution sectors have subjected Nigerians to. It’s almost as if acknowledging reality might interfere with the business of winning elections and we can’t have that.
The mass media, which ordinarily should interrogate these issues, is far more interested in soundbites and stoking controversies that border on the mundane. For the media, it appears convenient to report business as usual and try not to rock the boat because heaven forbid the boat should tip over and reveal the water everyone’s already drowning in.
A Widening Gyre
Unfolding events and the repetition of the same old tales that have dogged the country’s existence indicate that Nigerians are caught in a widening gyre, with all the characteristics of spinning out of control but for whatever reason, it doesn’t. The centre holds, not because anyone is holding it, but because gravity has apparently decided to give Nigerians a break, since their government won’t.
So here we are again: another election season, another round of promises, another opportunity to watch politicians trade blame like children trading insults in a playground, while the actual playground the one with no power, no food security, and no relief in sight continues to crumble.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. And the more they stay the same, the more Nigerians are expected to smile, nod, and vote as if this time will be different. It won’t be. But hey, at least the campaign rallies have good music.
*The author writes from a country where the lights are off, the prices are up, and the politicians are just getting started.
