Nigeria's economy has pulled back from the brink, but 63 per cent of its people now live in poverty — and one of the reform programme's most prominent supporters has publicly conceded the government failed to cushion the shocks it imposed.

Muhammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, delivered the critique at the Oxford Global Think Tank Leadership Conference. His intervention carries weight because Sanusi has backed much of President Bola Tinubu's reform agenda, including fuel subsidy removal and a market-determined exchange rate.

What do the numbers show?

Sanusi accepted the headline gains. Growth has risen from an average of 0.9 per cent under the previous administration to about 4.5 per cent. Inflation has fallen from above 30 per cent to 14.6 per cent. External reserves stand at about $55 billion. Each of these, he said, "is progress."

The substructure is weaker. Gross domestic product grew 4.43 per cent in the second quarter of this year — the fastest pace in five years — yet manufacturing, the sector best placed to create mass employment, is expanding at barely 1.5 per cent. Growth driven largely by services and oil can rise while household incomes stand still.

The World Bank reported in April that the national poverty rate climbed to 63 per cent in 2025 even as inflation eased, concluding that the reforms delivered stability without relief for the poor.

What did Sanusi actually say?

The Emir did not stop at applause. "At the end of the day, we've got to look at the human beings at the bottom of the pyramid," he told the conference. "What's happening to human beings? What's happening to education? What's happening to healthcare?"

He conceded the country "should have designed policies that would try to minimise those shocks" — and noted this had not been done. Coming from one of the most consistent advocates of subsidy removal and naira flotation, the admission is a rare break in ranks.

His sharpest remark targeted the government's treatment of critics. "It's not every time people talk about poverty or talk about difficulty that they're just enemies of the government," he said. "That is not how to respond to economic distress."

President Tinubu has himself recently blamed rivals for the very problems they criticise — a posture Sanusi implicitly rejected.

Why the safety net failed

Lower inflation means prices are rising more slowly, not that they have fallen. For families whose incomes did not keep pace with the shocks of 2023 and 2024, stabilisation has arrived as a plateau of hardship.

The delivery record is poor. A World Bank study last November found only about 44 per cent of the benefits of Nigeria's social protection programmes reached the poor, owing to weak targeting and fragmented delivery. A safety net that misses more than half the people it was built to catch has failed at its one task.

Sanusi also raised the fiscal constraint. Citing World Bank figures, he noted debt service consumed about 124 per cent of federal revenue in the first half of this year. A government spending more on creditors than it earns has little room for the social spending that would soften reform.

That arithmetic frames the Senate's current deliberation on the President's fresh request to borrow $7.7 billion — a request critics say demands a parallel cut in the cost of governance, which remains bloated while citizens absorb sacrifice.

What is business asking for?

The organised private sector has echoed the argument. At the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja last month, the new chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Omoboyede Olusanya, said progress should be judged by its effect on households, workers and businesses rather than mainly by GDP growth. He asked that summit commitments carry clear timelines and measurable indicators.

The policy prescriptions follow directly:

• Overhaul the national social register so cash transfers reach those who need them, with regular published audits of who has been paid.
• Channel more subsidy savings into primary healthcare and basic education, where returns for the poor are greatest.
• Prioritise job-creating sectors, especially agriculture and manufacturing, by tackling the high cost of power and credit that keeps factories idle.

Sanusi cautioned against complacency, describing current stability as a starting point rather than an achievement. Macroeconomic stability is necessary, but it is not the goal of economic policy.

An economy is not healed until the people who carried its pain begin to feel the cure.