Nigeria enters election season as Tinubu faces reform test

Abuja, Nigeria – Every morning, Shukurat Oyedele opens her small plastic goods shop near Offa Garage in Ilorin, central-north Nigeria, even though she knows there will be few customers. On the bleakest days, the 43-year-old sits outside reading the Quran while waiting for buyers.

Her business once attracted a steady stream of clients. But as prices have soared, many Nigerians have been forced to cut back on purchases they once considered routine.

“People still like to buy what I sell, but it has become too expensive. When they check their pockets and see they can’t afford it, they won’t buy it unless they absolutely must,” Oyedele, a mother of four, told Al Jazeera.

A 21-litre (5.5-gallon) bucket that cost 1,500 naira ($1.10) two years ago now sells for about 3,200 naira ($2.40) — more than double — and has led many customers to postpone purchases or buy in smaller quantities.

Her profit margin has shrunk, and her once well-stocked shop now holds only a few items.

“I still open every day so I don’t shut down completely. The market is no longer what it was,” she said.

Oyedele’s plight reflects the political dilemma facing President Bola Tinubu as Nigeria heads toward the 2027 presidential election: whether voters will judge his reforms on their long-term promise or on the immediate economic pain they have already endured.

Tinubu removed a fuel subsidy shortly after taking office in 2023 and introduced foreign-exchange reforms that allow the naira to trade more freely, arguing these measures were essential to shore up public finances, attract investment, and stabilise Africa’s largest economy.

The reforms have won support from investors and economists who have long argued Nigeria needs to address deep-rooted structural problems in its economy. But the benefits often arrive at households much more slowly than the costs they impose.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Nigeria’s reforms have improved macroeconomic stability but warned that living conditions for many citizens remain difficult. For many households, the immediate impact has been higher food prices, rising transport costs, and diminished purchasing power.

“The government has to convince Nigerians that those benefits will eventually translate into better lives, and provide a credible reason for them to wait for that,” Sekinat Ojeniyi, senior analyst at global risk consultancy Africa Practice, told Al Jazeera.

“That is a much harder political sell when people have already made significant sacrifices.”

For Tinubu, the political test is not just to defend the reforms but to persuade voters to bear the cost before they feel the benefits.

The cost of waiting

Tinubu’s government points to improving economic indicators as evidence that the reforms are starting to work. But many Nigerians experience the economy through what they pay for food, transport, and the basic needs of their families.

“Voters who experience this at the household level do not look at GDP charts,” Cheta Nwanze, partner at Nigerian research firm SBM Intelligence, told Al Jazeera. “Tinubu’s road to a second term is almost entirely dependent on opposition fragmentation and low voter turnout among his critics, rather than persuasion.”

For Oyedele, the crisis is measured by what her family can buy, not by official statistics.

“We can’t cook jollof rice like we used to. Now we cook rice with a bit of stew, and we might buy some spices like curry powder to make it taste better,” she said.

“People do not vote for GDP growth; they vote on what they feel in their own lives,” Ojeniyi said.

The gap between the government’s economic argument and household reality could become one of the defining issues of the election.

Anger without a vehicle

Economic hardship is not the only challenge facing the government. Nigeria continues to experience insecurity linked to armed groups, kidnappings, and religious factions, particularly in parts of the north and the Middle Belt.

Anne Ochayi, a 31-year-old lawyer living in Makurdi, told Al Jazeera that insecurity is her biggest concern when travelling in the region, where she worries about banditry, farmer-herder violence, theft, and kidnapping.

“We all live in fear. Apart from going on the road, this thing can come and meet you right in your own home,” she said. “If this insecurity continues, they can’t convince me to vote for them.”

The security crisis gives the opposition an issue to campaign on. But public anger alone does not guarantee electoral change.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi remain among the most prominent opposition figures seeking to challenge Tinubu, but efforts to unite opposition groups behind a single candidate have so far failed.

“The structural problem is that Nigeria’s electoral system rewards whoever can gather anti-incumbent votes into a single candidate,” Nwanze said. “With Atiku, Obi, and others running on separate platforms, the mathematics favours Tinubu even if his personal approval is weak.”

The power of incumbency

Tinubu enters the race amid economic and security discontent, but the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) retains one of its biggest advantages: organisation.

The APC controls the federal government and has built one of the most extensive political networks in Nigeria, giving Tinubu an edge in grassroots mobilisation.

“The APC’s structural advantage is not popularity but organisation,” Nwanze said. “The party controls the federal government and political structures across many states.”

Ojeniyi said these networks matter because elections in Nigeria are decided through local political structures as much as national campaigns.

“I think there is a risk of seeing the 2027 election purely as a referendum on Tinubu,” she said. “It is also a referendum on the quality of Nigeria’s political opposition and, more broadly, whether our democracy is producing meaningful choices for the people.”

For voters like Oyedele and Thomas Eneji, the election will ultimately be judged by whether everyday life improves, not by political promises.

Eneji, a ride-hailing driver in Abuja, told Al Jazeera he plans to vote in 2027 and hopes for a government that can make life easier for workers like him. Fuel costs, he said, make it hard for drivers to earn a living.

But he is also worried whether his ballot will translate into political change.

“I’ll keep voting; unfortunately, sometimes we vote and your vote doesn’t count because of one or two rigging tricks,” he said.