Port Harcourt Socials

WHEN PRESIDENT TINUBU SEEKS RE-ELECTION, A HUNGRY NATION MUST ASK: ON WHAT BASIS? By: Sopriala Membere (@SoprialaMembere) Columnist, Scholar and Member CRA Advocacy Network ————————————————— A government can declare progress, manufacture optimism and proclaim a new dawn, but it cannot indefinitely talk its way out of the reality its citizens confront every day. There comes a point when the distance between official propaganda and public suffering becomes so vast that political promises cease to inspire hope and begin to set alarm bells ringing. The Bola Tinubu regime may well have reached that point. As the electoral season gathers momentum, one would ordinarily expect a president seeking a renewed mandate after three and a half years of economic haemorrhage to speak with humility, acknowledge the pain Nigerians have endured, and demonstrate a willingness to correct past mistakes and learn from the failures of his regime. Instead, President Bola Tinubu, speaking in Kaduna, asked Nigerians to re-elect him for a second term. That request, coming from the head of a regime whose first three and a half years have been marked by economic hardship, raises an unavoidable question: having seen what Nigerians have seen since 2023, what exactly does the President Tinubu have to tell Nigerians to justify them reflecting him for another four year term? Set against the evidence of the past three and a half years, that statement, and his disposition towards it, is deeply disturbing. In Kaduna, rather than speak to his regime’s achievements, the President spent considerable time blaming the opposition, and abusing the Presidential candidate of the ADC, despite the APC having been in power for almost 12 years. This is particularly troubling when one considers that the request for re-election comes directly from the head of a regime that has democratised poverty, throwing the country into hunger and abject poverty, with soaring energy costs and a cost-of-living crisis never experienced. In that context, his request can only be seen as a threat to Nigerians, and the only reasonable response from a hungry nation is to examine the trajectory of his regime over the last three and a half years to understand what more Nigerians might expect if they reelect him. Let’s start with what the first term has already shown, because a threat is only as credible as the track record behind it. When the Tinubu regime took office in May 2023, a litre of petrol cost about ₦185; it now sells between ₦1,369 and ₦1,405, with the regime's celebrated "discount" amounting to a token ₦66 through an app—an offer expiring as the campaign peaks. Food inflation at 19.59 % year-on-year in September 2026, with food insecurity on the rise, and about 36.3 million Nigerians facing acute food insecurity, from more than 30.6 million during the corresponding period in 2025 according to the FAO's latest country brief reports. This shows that the price of feeding a family is still sprinting upwards. The gravity of this crisis is perhaps best captured by the Minister of Finance, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, who acknowledged that a government survey found that “up to 120% of household income is spent on food.” As he himself asked: “How do you spend 120% of your income? You borrow money for food before the end of the month.” When the regime’s own data reveal that most households spend more than they earn just to feed themselves, then it speaks to the sorry state of the Nigerian situation under President Tinubu. 1/