AWOLOWO’S WARNING, TINUBU’S BURDEN: REPAIRING A HOUSE NIGERIA LEFT TO THE TERMITES
By Gloria Fraser, MFR
“The education and health of every Nigerian citizen are indispensable to our rapid economic progress, political stability, and social harmony.” — Chief Obafemi Awolowo
Nigeria resembles a family that has lived for decades in a beautiful house while termites silently ate through its foundations. Because the roof remained standing, everybody pretended the structure was sound. Then an engineer arrives, opens the walls and exposes the rotten beams. Dust fills the rooms, furniture must be moved and life becomes uncomfortable. Suddenly, the engineer is accused of destroying the house.
That is the paradox confronting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Awolowo spent decades arguing that Nigeria could not achieve sustainable prosperity without educating its people, developing human capital and deliberately organising its economy. His philosophy placed the citizen at the centre of development. As he put it elsewhere, “Man is the Alpha and Omega…of all earthly human activities.”
More than half a century later, Tinubu’s diagnosis sounds remarkably complementary. On the third anniversary of his administration, he acknowledged: “We have not solved every problem, and we are not yet where we want to be.” But he added that the foundation for recovery had been laid and that the next task was ensuring the benefits of reform reached ordinary Nigerians.
That is the bridge between Awolowo’s warning and Tinubu’s challenge: an economy ultimately succeeds or fails by what happens to its people.
THE 70-YEAR POLICY DEBT
Nigeria’s structural problems did not begin on May 29, 2023.
Petrol subsidy did not begin with Tinubu. Multiple exchange rates did not begin with Tinubu. Oil dependence, electricity shortages, deficient infrastructure, unemployment, weak industrialisation, educational deprivation and agricultural under-productivity did not arrive with him.
Yet every President inherits not only the assets of the nation but its accumulated liabilities.
That distinction is fundamental.
There is a difference between responsibility for treating a disease and responsibility for causing it.
A doctor treating a patient after decades of untreated illness must answer for the quality of today’s treatment. But it would be absurd to accuse him of causing the disease because the medicine is painful.
For too long Nigeria managed symptoms rather than the underlying illness.
Cheap subsidised petrol looked like prosperity. An artificially managed exchange rate created an appearance of currency stability. Oil revenues encouraged consumption without corresponding productivity. Borrowing postponed difficult choices.
Eventually, reality presented the bill.
Tinubu chose subsidy removal, foreign-exchange reform, tax restructuring and fiscal reform. The consequences have included severe pressure on household purchasing power and businesses. Pretending otherwise would insult Nigerians who have experienced the hardship.
But equally misleading is the suggestion that reversing every difficult reform would restore some golden economic past.
The old system itself had become part of the problem.
AWOLOWO’S WARNING IS STILL IN OUR CLASSROOMS
Perhaps the clearest evidence of Nigeria’s accumulated policy failure is not found at the petrol station or foreign-exchange window.
It is found among its children.
UNICEF reported that about 10.2 million primary-school-age children and another 8.1 million junior-secondary-age children were out of school, while 74 per cent of children aged seven to fourteen lacked basic reading and mathematics skills.
That is not merely an education crisis. It is an economic and potentially a national-security crisis.
Awolowo understood this relationship decades ago.
His argument was that the educated, healthy human being was Nigeria’s greatest economic asset. In 2026, Minister of State for Budget and Economic Planning Doris Uzoka-Anite echoed essentially the same philosophy: “Investing in children is not optional; it is fundamental to Nigeria’s growth and stability.”
The message across generations could hardly be clearer.
You cannot leave millions inadequately educated, under-skilled or unemployed and then expect technology, manufacturing and productivity to flourish automatically.
REPAIRING THE FOUNDATION
Tinubu’s reforms should therefore be assessed not merely by their political popularity but by whether they are repairing structural weaknesses.
Subsidy removal attempts to eliminate an enormous consumption distortion. Exchange-rate reform seeks a more market-reflective currency system. Tax reforms seek to broaden and rationalise government revenue while reducing distortions. CNG development attempts to turn Nigeria’s huge gas resources into cheaper transportation energy.
Agricultural interventions and food-security programmes seek higher production. Solid-minerals policy increasingly emphasises local processing and value addition rather than simply exporting raw resources. Education financing, including NELFUND, seeks to widen access to tertiary education.
Infrastructure, crude-oil production, gas development, power-sector reforms and international investment diplomacy form other pieces of the same economic reconstruction.
There are early signs of improvement, although nobody should confuse them with mission accomplished.
Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics reported 3.89 per cent real GDP growth in the first quarter of 2026, compared with 3.13 per cent a year earlier. Manufacturing grew by 3.29 per cent.
But GDP does not eat dinner.
A mother buying rice cannot feed her children with macroeconomic statistics. A graduate needs employment, not a graph. A farmer needs security, inputs, roads and a market.
That is why Tinubu’s pivot towards people-focused governance may prove as important as the original reforms.
The President himself now says the benefits of reform must be felt more directly in ordinary Nigerians’ daily lives, through lower food and transportation costs, employment and enterprise.
Reform must become relief. Stabilisation must become opportunity. Increased government revenue must become visible improvement in people’s lives.
NATIONAL PATRIOTS POSITION
The National Patriots believes Nigeria must distinguish between the pain created by decades of accumulated structural failure and the pain involved in correcting it.
President Tinubu should be judged fairly—not excused where implementation falls short, but neither blamed for structural problems substantially older than his administration.
The encouraging development is the transition from macroeconomic stabilisation towards people-focused governance, social protection, food security, healthcare, education, employment and support for vulnerable Nigerians.
Ultimately, however, government must prove reform where it matters most: on the dining table, in the marketplace, in jobs, security and household purchasing power.
THE HOUSE MUST FINALLY BE REBUILT
Nigeria cannot continue painting over termite damage.
Tinubu did not create Nigeria’s accumulated policy debt. His historical test is whether he possesses the courage, competence and compassion to substantially reduce it.
The termites were already in the house.
The question is whether Nigerians will endure the disruption necessary to remove them—and whether government will ensure that the rebuilding produces a stronger house for everyone.
COMING SOON — NIGERIA’S GREAT RESET
By Princess Gloria Adebajo-Fraser, MFR
Nigeria’s Great Reset examines President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s vision, mission, reforms, achievements and areas requiring improvement. It investigates the benefits and burdens of reform, the plight of ordinary Nigerians and the emerging people-focused response to hardship. From social protection and Tinubu’s humanitarian record to foreign policy, solid-minerals value addition, education and youth empowerment, tax reform, agriculture and food security, naira flotation, infrastructure, crude oil, gas and energy, the book separates rhetoric from results and progress from unfinished work. Can Nigeria’s painful reset ultimately produce prosperity its people can see, earn and feel? Nigeria’s Great Reset searches for the answer.
The National Patriots.
