Bola Tinubu has declared that Nigeria’s economy has turned a corner, telling a gathering of state governors on Friday that the era of states queuing up for federal government handouts to cover workers’ wages is over—a claim he presented as one of the clearest signs that his administration’s economic reforms are beginning to bear fruit.
The president made the remarks while receiving members of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum at his Lagos residence, where they had come to pay their Sallah respects. With Vice President Kashim Shettima leading the delegation, the occasion took on the character of a political stocktaking, with Tinubu reflecting at length on the turbulence of his path to power and what he described as the shared sacrifice of the past three years.
“Instead of bankruptcy, Nigeria has survived,” he told the governors. “The economy has recovered. It is growing. Agriculture is humming. Food is here.” He added that macroeconomic indicators were performing well, that road construction and housing development were advancing, and that previously abandoned infrastructure projects were being rehabilitated.
On the question of state finances, Tinubu was pointed. Of the 27 governors who had previously sought federal interventions to meet salary obligations, he said, that dependency had now ended. “No more,” he declared.
The president also used the gathering to look back, with evident emotion, on the legal and political battles that preceded his election — court challenges, party tensions and, in his telling, moments of personal resolve that others around him did not fully share. “Some kept faith,” he said of his allies. “Instead of dodging the bullets, I took it. I took the point in the chin.” He acknowledged that he had not briefed even close supporters on the specific policies he intended to pursue, describing the loyalty of governors who backed him as a leap of faith taken on the strength of party solidarity alone.
Tinubu credited the governors with helping to hold public morale together during what he conceded had been a period of considerable hardship. “You persuaded our people to be patient, to endure these three years of painful reforms,” he said, “while we put the economy on reset.”
Looking ahead, he pointed to the Sokoto-Badagry corridor as emblematic of the country’s unrealised potential, suggesting that a string of dams along the route could unlock significant capacity for irrigation, farming and electricity generation. He urged governors to press harder on agricultural development, expressing confidence that Nigeria could achieve food sufficiency and, ultimately, food sovereignty if its land resources were properly harnessed.
The upbeat assessment will nonetheless face scrutiny. Nigeria’s inflation rate has placed severe pressure on household budgets throughout Tinubu’s tenure, and the removal of the petrol subsidy — the most consequential of his early reforms — triggered a sharp cost-of-living shock whose effects many Nigerians say they are still absorbing. Whether the recovery the president described on Friday is yet felt beyond the level of macroeconomic data remains, for many citizens, an open question.
