Two years into President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s reign, Nigeria finds itself not at the threshold of the promised “Renewed Hope” but trapped in the ruins of what critics now call a “Harvest of Suffering.” In his second-anniversary address, President Tinubu painted a picture of progress; a fantasy panorama so detached from Nigeria’s scorched-earth reality that it bordered on the hallucinatory. While citizens dig deeper into empty pockets, Tinubu spoke of “sacrifice” and “growth.” It was not a speech; it was a slap on the face of the hungry, a sneer at the unemployed, and a sermon of self-congratulation read aloud to a congregation of the disillusioned, that no longer prays for miracles, but for mercy. Tinubu’s speech; steeped in delusion was another reminder, if at all one was needed that, what began on May 29, 2023, was not a presidency – it was an economic Armageddon unleashed on a helpless and hapless people!
Governance by Trial and Terror
In a nation already wearied by decades of poor leadership, Tinubu’s midterm record reads less like a report card and more like a national obituary. The hopes of millions have been buried under economic collapse, elite arrogance, and administrative incompetence, while the ruling class clinks glasses to the dirges of a dying republic. Tinubu’s economic policies have proven not only fruitless, but brutal. From the catastrophic removal of fuel subsidies – done with the flourish of a king pulling the lever of a guillotine – to the reckless devaluation of the naira, every “reform” has deepened the pit into which
Nigerians are being shoved. Inflation has turned necessities into luxuries, with fuel, electricity, food, housing, and medicine seeing price hikes exceeding 40 percent. The masses no longer live; they endure. Survival is no longer a pursuit; it is an affliction. This is governance by experiment, by gamble, by the callous whims of the wealthy. As the #EndBadGovernance Movement declared, these reforms were “imposed on a helpless nation,” ushered in not by democratic consensus but by executive fiat.
As the African Democratic Congress gubernatorial candidate, John Chuma Nwosu, aptly stated, the speech was “vacuous,” a missed opportunity buried beneath slogans, posturing, and a shameless preamble to 2027 politicking. “Nigerians are worse off than they were two years ago,” he declared; and the data, despair, and death are there to prove it.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s assessment is no less damning: Tinubu’s cabinet is “heavily tainted by incompetence and corruption,” a “Yorubanisation” of national governance that insults the nation’s fragile unity. His ministers; most of them plucked not for merit but for tribal allegiance and political loyalty -have turned governance into a grotesque theatre of failure.
Indeed, the few glimmers of hope – like Dave Umahi’s visible work on federal infrastructure and Nyesom Wike’s bold reforms in the FCT – only cast the rest of the cabinet in sharper relief. Nigeria is not lacking in potential. It is suffocating under the dead weight of incompetence.
Propaganda Over Policy
Faced with criticism, the APC retreats into its predictable fortress of blame. “Past administrations,” they cry – like ghosts blaming the living for the graveyard’s silence. APC Publicity Secretary Felix Morka likened the current suffering to a child learning to walk. But Nigeria is not a toddler – it is a wounded nation being dragged across broken glass by leaders who confuse pain with progress. What the APC brands as courage is in truth a reckless disdain for consequence. They champion subsidy removal as “visionary,” even as millions plunge into poverty. They celebrate IMF loans while debt edges toward a suicidal ₦200 trillion. This is not statesmanship – it is necropolitics, governance as managed decline.
Insecurity and the Death of Dissent
Nowhere is the administration’s failure more horrifying than in security. The National Youth Stakeholders Forum has documented a tidal wave of killings and kidnappings across Benue, Zamfara, Plateau, and Kaduna. The government’s response? Silence so loud it screams complicity. Meanwhile, protesters languish in detention. Peaceful citizens, many of them young and brave, are charged with treason for daring to say what every stomach already knows, Nigeria is bleeding. In its bid to crush dissent, Tinubu’s government has become a parody of the democratic values it claims to defend.
If the government’s policies are misguided, its borrowing is maniacal. The Youth Arise Movement notes that over $21.5 billion has been borrowed externally and ₦757 billion domestically in just one year. At the same time, nearly a trillion in recovered public funds remains unaccounted for. Where is the money? Where are the results? This is not governance; it is embezzlement on a generational scale. Nigeria’s future is being mortgaged to feed the appetites of a corrupt elite today. If this continues, our children will inherit not a country, but a desolate wasteland.
The People’s Verdict
Across the country, voices rise like a swelling tide. From Ohanaeze to JDPC, from ADC to EBG, from the streets of Ikeja to the creeks of the Niger Delta, Nigerians are saying the same thing: enough is enough. The people are not crawling – they are crawling out from under the boot of tyranny disguised as reform.
And yet, amidst the rubble, the spirit of resistance lives. Civil society groups are mobilizing. Protests are planned. Citizens are learning to distinguish democracy from dictatorship dressed in democratic garb.
President Tinubu’s two-year midterm scorecard is not just a failure; it is a catastrophe. It is a betrayal of hope, a eulogy for incompetence, and a sermon of suffering read aloud to a congregation that no longer prays for miracles but for mercy. History will not be kind to this era if the next two years do not birth a radical change. Mr. President, you have two years left; not to speak at the people, but to listen to them. Not to rule over them, but to serve them. Not to borrow from the unborn, but to account for the stolen. If you fail again, the only legacy you will leave behind is this: that when Nigeria stood on the brink, you chose the abyss.
