By Gabriel Ameh
ABUJA — The Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), a national think tank, says the resilience and patriotic endurance of Nigerians have been critical to sustaining President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic reforms despite the significant hardships associated with the ongoing transition.
IMPI Chairman, Dr Omoniyi Akinsiju, made the assertion in a statement titled “Nigerians as Actual Executors of Tinubu’s Reforms as Economy Transits from Consumption to Productivity,” released on July 31, 2026, in Abuja.
Akinsiju said the long-term success and sustainability of the administration’s economic reforms depended significantly on the Nigerian public, describing citizens as the “primary shock absorbers, ultimate arbiters of accountability, and engine of behavioural realignment” required for a market-driven economy.
According to him, Nigerians have played three major roles in the reform process: absorbing the immediate economic shocks, demanding fiscal accountability and enforcement of the social contract, and driving behavioural changes capable of supporting local production.
He said the removal of petrol subsidy and the floating of the naira triggered significant increases in the cost of transportation, food and energy, placing considerable pressure on households and businesses.
However, he noted that the ability of Nigerian households and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to adapt to the difficult economic environment helped keep the economy functioning through periods of severe inflationary pressure.
Akinsiju argued that public resilience provided the government with the fiscal space needed to implement its reforms, strengthen external reserves and avoid a deeper economic crisis.
He also stressed the importance of citizens in monitoring how public resources saved through the reforms are utilised.
According to him, civil society organisations, citizens and social media users have continued to demand greater transparency in the deployment of resources from subsidy savings, particularly in infrastructure, healthcare and human capital development.
He said the effectiveness of government interventions such as the Nigeria Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) transport initiatives and direct cash transfer programmes would depend largely on public participation, monitoring and accountability.
“Rather than being passive spectators, we have observed the role of Nigerians in three critical dimensions in the sacrifice phase of bearing the immediate structural shock; enforcing fiscal accountability and the Social Contract; and the driving behavioural shifts and local productivity,” he said.
Akinsiju further said Nigeria’s economic transformation required more than monetary policy interventions or foreign investment, stressing the need for a fundamental shift in the way Nigerians produce and consume.
He said the depreciation of the naira and the increased cost of imported goods should encourage consumers and businesses to support locally manufactured products, agriculture, technology startups and other domestic enterprises.
He added that greater participation in the formal economy would also help expand Nigeria’s tax base and reduce the country’s longstanding dependence on volatile oil revenues.
The IMPI chairman attributed Nigeria’s economic vulnerabilities to decades of policies centred on subsidised consumption, exchange-rate controls and monetary interventions that, according to him, weakened domestic production and encouraged rent-seeking.
He argued that previous attempts to shield Nigerians from currency depreciation through artificial exchange-rate controls and other interventions contributed to foreign exchange distortions and limited investment in productive sectors.
Akinsiju said the Tinubu administration had taken a different approach by allowing greater market-based pricing, unifying the foreign exchange market and removing petrol subsidies.
“By taking the ‘bitter medicine’ that previous governments avoided, this federal administration has fundamentally changed the global perception of the Nigerian marketplace,” he said.
He maintained that Nigeria’s central economic challenge was to move from a consumption-driven model to one focused on production, adding that the country must produce more of what it consumes while increasing value addition to its exports.
According to him, the transition would be supported by fiscal reforms, institutional digitisation and long-term industrial planning.
He said sustained public participation, accountability and increased domestic productivity would ultimately determine whether the current economic reforms translate into a more resilient and sustainable Nigerian economy.
