Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu-led government must not mistake economic stabilisation for prosperity while millions of citizens continue to grapple with grinding poverty, an economist, Dr Paul Alaje, has warned, in a position that substantially echoes the sweeping criticism of the administration’s economic reforms by political scientist, Prof Abdullahi Sule-Kano.
The two experts, speaking at the 48th edition of Boiling Point Arena on Sunday night, challenged the notion that improvements in selected economic indicators necessarily translate into better living conditions for Nigerians, insisting that the ultimate test of economic policy is whether citizens can afford a decent life.
While Alaje acknowledged that the Tinubu administration had recorded some gains in public finance management and foreign reserves, he argued that the country had yet to make the decisive transition from economic stabilisation to genuine transformation.
For his part, Sule-Kano went further, arguing that the Tinubu economic reforms were perpetuating the logic of the infamous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) of the 80’s and deepening the vulnerability of workers and the middle class.
The monthly public affairs programme anchored by a veteran journalist and communication strategy expert, Ayo Arowojolu, was transmitted via Zoom and broadcast live on seven partner radio stations across Lagos, Ogun and Delta States, over a two-hour duration, with frontline traditional ruler, the olowu of Owu Kingdom Oba Prof Saka Matemilola as Chair and Keynote Speaker.
The topic of discourse was: “Where Did the Middle Class Go? How Are Nigerians Surviving the Cost-of-Living Crisis and What Can Government Do to Ease Hardship/Pain?”
Alaje’s intervention was particularly significant because he attributed part of the improvement in Nigeria’s foreign reserves to new borrowings, remittances and other inflows, raising questions about how far such gains reflect a stronger productive economy.
For the renowned economist, the task ahead is not simply to improve the government’s financial position but to expand productive employment, strengthen domestic production, raise real incomes and make essential services affordable.
The arguments of both Alaje and Sule-Kano converged on a central warning: economic stability cannot honestly be presented as prosperity while households are losing purchasing power, struggling to meet basic needs and slipping towards poverty.
*Stabilisation is not prosperity*
Alaje argued that Nigeria’s economic recovery must be assessed by what happens to household incomes and the purchasing power of ordinary citizens, rather than by headline financial indicators alone.
He acknowledged that the government had sought to address longstanding pressures on public finances, including the burden of fuel subsidy payments and debt servicing. He also pointed to the reported rise in foreign reserves as evidence that some of the administration’s financial objectives had been achieved.
However, he made a distinction between stabilising the economy and transforming it, arguing that the country could not arrive at prosperity without deliberately building the productive capacity needed to sustain higher living standards.
The economist explained that an increase in nominal income was meaningless if inflation and rising essential expenses continued to erode what workers could actually afford. In effect, a salary increase that fails to keep pace with the cost of food, transportation, healthcare, education and housing offers little protection against impoverishment.
Alaje therefore urged policymakers and organised labour to focus on real income—the actual purchasing power of earnings—rather than becoming preoccupied with monetary figures.
He also argued that the economy needed to generate more decent jobs and provide the conditions under which businesses could expand production, employ more Nigerians and pay wages capable of sustaining households.
The implication of his analysis was unmistakable: even if the government’s fiscal position has improved in some respects, it cannot credibly declare economic success without demonstrating that the gains are reaching the population.
*Borrowings cannot substitute for economic transformation*
The composition and sustainability of economic gains formed an important part of Alaje’s argument. While pointing to the improvement in foreign reserves, he identified new borrowings, remittances and other inflows among the factors contributing to the increase.
His position was that Nigeria must move beyond the initial phase of stabilisation to economic transformation, driven by domestic production, productivity and sustainable income growth.
He argued that the country remained vulnerable because of its dependence on imported finished products and its failure to sufficiently energise the local economy. Low incomes, he explained, constrain savings; weak savings limit investment; inadequate investment depresses productivity; and low productivity feeds back into low incomes.
That cycle, he warned, would continue to undermine the emergence of a strong middle class unless the government created conditions for a more productive economy. According to him, the critical question is whether Nigeria’s improved financial indicators are being converted into productive capacity and broad-based prosperity—or whether the country is merely recording stabilisation without the structural changes necessary to sustain it.
*Sule-Kano: Reforms are pushing Nigerians back into poverty*
Prof Sule-Kano, a one-time Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Bayero University, Kano, reinforced the concerns raised by Alaje, although he offered a more fundamental criticism of the economic programme.
The political scientist argued that Nigeria’s middle class was a transitional social group, vulnerable to moving upwards towards greater wealth or sliding backwards into the conditions of the working class.
He maintained that the current economic pressures were forcing many Nigerians who had previously enjoyed a measure of financial security back into poverty.
According to him, the erosion of the middle class cannot be understood merely as a temporary consequence of inflation. It must be examined within the broader structure of Nigeria’s economy, particularly the relationships governing production, ownership and the distribution of wealth.
Sule-Kano accused the government of pursuing policies that reproduce the underlying principles of the Structural Adjustment Programme, despite presenting them under the language of economic reforms.
He argued that the policy direction was insufficiently rooted in the needs of ordinary Nigerians and was failing to address the deteriorating circumstances of workers and other economically vulnerable groups.
For him, the central issue was not simply whether the economy was becoming more stable, but who benefited from that stability and whether those who produced the nation’s wealth could afford to live decently.
He maintained that workers were being squeezed by an economic system in which the rewards of production were increasingly disconnected from their capacity to meet basic needs.
The professor also questioned whether foreign investments, loans and relief programmes were necessarily translating into meaningful improvements in the lives of the majority.
His argument was that an economy cannot claim genuine development when its workers are increasingly unable to enjoy the wealth they help create.
*The middle class as casualty of failed transformation*
Both speakers identified the weakening of the middle class as a major indication of the country’s economic difficulties.
Alaje explained that a genuine middle-class household should be able to afford decent housing, healthcare, education, transportation and utilities while retaining enough income to save, invest and withstand financial emergencies.
To him, where a supposedly employed household must borrow to meet basic expenses, cannot cope with an unexpected medical bill and has little prospect of accumulating assets, its economic security is already in serious jeopardy.
He argued that the size and strength of the middle class depend on productive employment and the ability of households to convert earnings into a sustainable standard of living.
Sule-Kano, meanwhile, described the middle class as particularly vulnerable to economic shocks because its members often lack the accumulated wealth needed to protect them from the consequences of rising prices and declining real incomes.
He maintained that many Nigerians were being pushed backwards into working-class poverty as the cost of survival rose faster than their ability to earn.
The significance of this convergence is that the crisis is not confined to people who have always lived in poverty. It also affects households that previously considered themselves economically secure but are now struggling to maintain their former standard of living.
For both experts, the erosion of the middle class points to a deeper failure to create the productive opportunities and income conditions necessary for sustainable economic advancement.
*Government must deliver prosperity, not just stabilisation*
Alaje identified electricity, transportation, education and healthcare as critical drivers of economic transformation. He argued that unreliable electricity raises business costs, while expensive transportation increases the cost of moving workers and goods. Both pressures ultimately feed into the prices paid by consumers.
He cautioned against policies that could further increase electricity costs without adequately considering their effects on inflation and household welfare.
He also insisted that education and healthcare must be affordable if Nigerians are to acquire the skills, health and productive capacity required to drive economic growth.
Beyond infrastructure and public services, he called for targeted support for small businesses and artisans through equipment, skills development and access to finance.
He warned that relief programmes would remain ineffective if political considerations determined who received assistance instead of the genuine economic needs of communities.
Sule-Kano, for his part, argued that Nigeria needed to confront the structural problems of its economy and establish a development framework that placed productive activity and the welfare of working people at its centre.
He insisted that economic progress could not be achieved through monetary interventions alone without expanding production and ensuring that workers received rewards commensurate with their contribution.
*The real test of Tinubu’s economic agenda*
The 48th edition of Boiling Point Arena ultimately raised a question that goes to the heart of the Tinubu administration’s economic programme: what is the value of financial stabilisation if millions of Nigerians remain unable to afford the necessities of life?
For Alaje, the government must demonstrate that the gains recorded in public finances can translate into productive employment, stronger domestic production, higher real incomes and improved access to essential services.
For Sule-Kano, the country must also reconsider the economic framework underpinning the reforms and confront the structural forces he believes are deepening poverty and weakening the working population.
Their arguments point to a clear distinction between economic indicators and economic welfare. Improved reserves may strengthen a country’s financial position, but they do not automatically put food on household tables, reduce transport fares, make healthcare affordable or enable families to save for the future.
