From Reform to Prosperity: The work to reelect this president starts now! – By Ima Niboro

Today, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu officially inaugurated the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council. With that event, the work of providing the case for his re-election to Nigerians starts in earnest.

For those people in the Media and Strategic Communications Directorate, nevertheless, the work did not start today. We have actually been at it considering that August, creating the structures, method, and interactions architecture needed for what will unquestionably be an extreme nationwide project. Today was the official inauguration by Mr President and the signal for the equipment to move into complete project mode.

Within the APC PCC Media and Strategic Communications Directorate are 6 subcommittees. I have the advantage of serving on 3 of them: the Committee of Campaign Spokespersons, the Strategy Committee, and the Committee on the Screening of Media and Advertising Agencies that will deal with the Presidential Campaign Council.

These are duties I have actually handled with a clear understanding of what lies ahead.

I have actually constantly been indisputable about my assistance for the Tinubu administration. That assistance does not imply I misguide myself that whatever is best. Vice versa–
due to the fact that difficult however entirely inevitable choices have actually been made that have actually had genuine and in some cases challenging effects for numerous Nigerians.

I have actually constantly made the point that, in terms of large numbers, we members(and advocates)of APC are at the leading group of those living through these financial truths. Our NIN-verified subscription stands at about 12.8 million.(PDP– 2.4 million, ADC– 1.6 million, NDC– 700,000). Our members and advocates are traders, civil servants, farmers, transporters, specialists, craftsmens, and businesspeople. We purchase from the exact same markets, pay the exact same transportation fares, and challenge the exact same financial pressures as everyone else. In spite of these, we stay concentrated and positive, since delight comes in the early morning– and that early morning is here!

This project can not be developed on rejecting the apparent. It needs to be constructed on discussing why tough choices were taken, what they have actually accomplished, where they are taking the nation, and, most notably, when and how those gains equate into much better lives for regular Nigerians.

This is the main discussion of this project; and it is called– From Reform to Prosperity!

When President Tinubu presumed workplace in 2023, Nigeria dealt with deep financial and financial distortions that had actually built up over numerous years. Reserve bank funding of federal government deficits through Ways and Means advances (significance printing money, Zimbabwe Style, backed by absolutely nothing) had actually increased to about N30 trillion.

The foreign-exchange system had actually ended up being fragmented throughout numerous windows. By May 2023, the main NAFEX rate had to do with 465 to the dollar, while the parallel-market rate had to do with 763– a differential of approximately 63 percent. That massive gulf developed chances for arbitrage and rent-seeking, while companies without fortunate access to main forex were pushed into a far more costly, approximate, and unsustainable parallel market.

This President might have continued the pillage and made enormous gains for himself and his allies, like was going on before he took power. He stated no. Nigeria! This nation should appreciate that.

There was the gas aid routine, which took in massive public resources while motivating distortions, arbitrage, and heavy smuggling. Federal government earnings were under extreme pressure, debt-service commitments were at practically 98 percent of the spending plan, financiers were voting with their feet due to financial unpredictability, and the nation faced what the World Bank referred to as the risk of a “financial cliff.”

Certainly, something needed to offer. The nation was collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions, and the option before Tinubu was clear: Continue the arbitrariness, enhance the slide, and monitor Nigeria’s last collapse, or carry out a course correction, obstruct the leaks, stop the haemorrhage, and return the nation to a course of sustainable development and financial stability.

Since he picked the latter, history will respect him!

Gas aid was gotten rid of. Numerous foreign-exchange windows were combined, and the currency exchange rate moved towards a market-determined system. The Central Bank tightened up financial policy, started reconstructing reserves, resolved exceptional foreign-exchange responsibilities, and stopped simply printing cash (who still does that in the 21st century!) to fund financial deficits.
His administration concurrently started tax, oil and gas, power, facilities, and credit reforms planned to reconstruct the structures of the economy.

The very first stage hurt, no doubt. Fuel costs increased. The naira went through an extreme change. Inflation affected home earnings. Rate of interest increased as the financial authorities battled inflation. Companies and households brought a heavy problem.

3 years later on, the proof significantly reveals that Nigeria has actually moved beyond the most challenging phase of that change. The numbers are now informing a various story.

Foreign reserves have actually climbed up above $54 billion, compared to about $32 billion in mid-April 2024. Nigeria’s external position has actually enhanced substantially. The World Bank states genuine GDP grew by 4.2 percent in the very first half of 2026, compared to 3.9 percent in the matching duration of 2025 and 3.5 percent in 2024.

The very same World Bank report states that more powerful development stabilised Nigeria’s hardship rate for the very first time because 2019. That does not suggest hardship has actually vanished, however it represents an essential reversal that causes an intense brand-new future for our fantastic nation.

Hand in hand, Nigeria’s current-account position has actually likewise reinforced, as increasing reserves offer a larger buffer versus external shocks. You keep in mind when foreign airline companies were leaving Nigeria in droves since they had a space filled with naira and no dollars to transform it to? Or when you could not utilize your naira card for any global deals, whether in your area or abroad?
Those days are gone!

And the global monetary neighborhood is seeing.
In May, S&P Global Ratings raised Nigeria’s long-lasting sovereign credit score from B- to B, mentioning an enhancing macroeconomic profile, more powerful oil production, increased domestic refining capability, and the liberalisation of the foreign-exchange program.

In August, Moody’s modified Nigeria’s outlook to Positive from Stable while keeping its B3 ranking, mentioning more powerful external durability, greater foreign-exchange reserves, and financial development.

Last week, Fitch modified Nigeria’s sovereign outlook from Stable to Positive while verifying its B score. Amongst the elements Fitch recognized were more powerful external buffers, higher exchange-rate versatility, disinflation, and increased self-confidence in the connection of the reform structure.

J.P. Morgan has actually now consisted of Nigeria amongst the nations in its brand-new GBI-EM Edge frontier local-currency bond index, another opportunity through which worldwide financiers can evaluate direct exposure to Nigeria’s domestic financial obligation market. And its banking arm, JP Morgan Chase, is bringing a brand name brand-new financial investment bank to Nigeria.

Plainly, the world understands that Nigeria has actually not fixed all its issues. Neither ought to we, back home here, pretend that credit scores put food on any person’s table.

What these advancements state unquestionably is that organizations whose service it is to examine sovereign danger significantly see effective modifications in Nigeria’s financial principles. And lower sovereign threat, if sustained, implies lower expenses, higher financial investment, more companies, more tasks, higher resources to establish our nation, and eventually cash in the pocket and food on the table.

The next stage is for that reason the most crucial one: transforming financial stabilisation into success.

That suggests bringing inflation down even more so that salaries recuperate increasingly more buying power. It implies keeping foreign-exchange stability so services can prepare and price their items with higher certainty. It suggests increasing food production and assaulting the structural issues increasing food costs.

It likewise suggests making sure that greater Federation earnings continue to equate into much better roadways, medical facilities, schools, water, security, and social services at federal, state, and city government levels.

It suggests broadening conditional money transfers to the poorest of the bad amongst us, it indicates increasing customer and company credit so that Nigerians can fund homes, cars, education, and business without needing to have the whole purchase cost in money.

It suggests deepening the CNG program and electric-powered transportation interventions to decrease the expense of movement. It likewise indicates broadening domestic refining so that Nigeria can put a last stop to importing petroleum items and the foreign-exchange pressures related to that.

Moving from Reform to Prosperity implies drawing in the financial investment needed to develop countless efficient tasks. Above all, it implies making sure that the macroeconomic healing relocations from the computer system screens, the huge and in some cases complicated numbers on the spreadsheets, ranking reports, and federal government data into Nigerian pockets, cooking areas, and dining tables.

That, in my view, is the terrific project of the next stage, and there’s nobody much better placed to achieve this job than the chief visioner of the reform program, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu himself.

Our nationwide financial structures have actually been reset. Now the Nigerian individuals will see and feel the complete advantages of your house built on these structures.

Much has actually been done currently. At the heart of the Tinubu administration’s interventions have actually been programs created to put cash in individuals’s pockets, alleviate the expense of living, and expand access to chance. The nationwide base pay has actually been increased, while conditional money transfers are offering assistance to susceptible homes. Trainees who may otherwise be not able to manage college are gaining from the Student Loan Scheme through NELFUND, while customer credit, YouthCred, the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund, and loans and grants for MSMEs are broadening access to fund for employees, youths, business owners, and small companies.

The administration has actually likewise targeted the daily pressures Nigerians feel most straight– food, health care, transport, and tasks. Agricultural programs, consisting of dry-season farming assistance, tractor release, and the National Agricultural Growth Scheme, are increasing food production and enhancing farmers. Main health care revitalisation and broadened cancer-treatment facilities are enhancing access to important health care, while the CNG effort is supplying a more affordable transport option. Programs such as 3MTT, digital youth training, and the Creative Economy Development Fund are gearing up young Nigerians with abilities and opening brand-new paths to work and business.

Beyond these instant interventions, significant financial investments are being made in security, electrical power, roadways, rail, ports, and other facilities that impact every day life and financial chance. Counterterrorism operations are everyday enhancing security, while power-sector reforms, grid growth, the Zungeru hydropower job, nationwide roadway rehab, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, Sokoto-Badagry Highway, and revitalised Abuja Metro are enhancing the structures for development. The more comprehensive reforms in tax, forex, public profits, financial obligation management, and the petroleum sector are all parts of the equipment needed to sustainably fund a more protected nation, enhance run-down civil services, produce more tasks, and enhance living requirements for our individuals.

This is why the work to reelect this President moves into high equipment efficient today.

The coming elections need to offer Nigerians with the chance to take a look at records, policy options, repercussions, and options. And President Tinubu will need to protect his record before Nigerians, as every incumbent looking for re-election should. His oppositions will similarly need to describe not just what they would do in a different way, however how they would do it, what it would cost, and what repercussions would follow.

For those people delegated with interacting the President’s case, our obligation is for that reason considerable.

We will discuss without insulting the intelligence of Nigerians; protect without rejecting apparent problems; encourage with truths. We will commemorate the successes and acknowledge where more work stays to be done. And we will show why connection of the reforms provides the nation a course towards more powerful and more broadly shared success.

I have actually seen before what occurs when an incumbent federal government is not able to encourage Nigerians that its work should have to continue.

I served President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and saw his administration lose re-election in 2015. That experience taught me a long-term lesson about politics: efficiency alone is never ever enough. A federal government needs to continually describe what it is doing, why it is doing it, and where it means to take the nation.

That lesson stays top quality on my mind, and I bring its weight with me constantly.

In this election, we will make the case intensely, respectfully, and factually. Nigerians will eventually make their option, as is their democratic. For us, nevertheless, there can be no complacency.
The project has actually started. The work starts in earnest.

And we will win!