Nigeria’s 2025 In Review: A Year Of Hunger, Hypocrisy And Hard Power

By Igbotako Nowinta

Ngeria did not merely stagger through 2025; it bled through it.

By the time the calendar flipped from the trauma of 2024 into the promise of a new year, Nigerians already knew the truth – the pain was not temporary, and the suffering was not accidental.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s abrupt fuel subsidy removal had detonated a chain reaction—currency collapse, runaway inflation, mass impoverishment—and 2025 became the year the consequences fully matured into national despair.

An economy designed to punish the poor

Naira’s free fall against the dollar turned food, transport, rent, healthcare, and education into luxuries. Salaries remained stagnant while prices went ballistic. This was not reform with compassion; it was a shock therapy without anesthesia. Millions slipped into extreme poverty, not because Nigeria lacked resources, but because governance lacked empathy.

The absence of meaningful social safety nets exposed the hollowness of official claims about “economic recovery.” Recovery for whom? Certainly not for the market women, students, pensioners, and unemployed youths crushed by inflation.

Cruelty, insensitiveness, and reckless spending are not leadership.

Governance by strong-arm, not statesmanship

Early in 2025, it became clear that Nigeria’s ruling elite had no intention of adjusting course. The Natasha–Akpabio imbroglio at the National Assembly symbolized a legislature more interested in ego battles than national rescue. Governance degenerated into gangsterism, intimidation, and raw power display.

The most chilling example came with President Tinubu’s declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers State and the suspension of a democratically elected governor. Whatever legal justifications were offered, the political message was unmistakable – federal might over a democratic mandate.

Meanwhile, some governors shamelessly dumped their parties en masse to join the ruling APC, not out of ideology, but out of survival instinct. Nigeria drifted dangerously toward a one-party dominance lubricated by coercion and patronage.

Hypocrisy as a policy

On July 14, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of financial autonomy for local governments. Tinubu’s government, constitutionally obligated to enforce the judgment, dragged its feet. Then came December 18, 2025—the same president suddenly lecturing APC governors on the importance of local government autonomy.

Nigerians are not fools. This was hypocrisy in its purest form.

The same duplicity defines Tinubu’s loud call for state police. In a country where most governors have now clustered under APC, state police risks becoming not a security tool, but an election-rigging infrastructure ahead of 2027. Power centralized in friendly hands is not decentralization —it is danger.

Insecurity everywhere, accountability nowhere

Gunmen, kidnappers, and suicide bombers continued to puncture national peace. The abduction of schoolgirls once again exposed a state incapable of protecting its most vulnerable. Terrorism festered, while citizens learned to live with fear as a daily companion.

Then came the shocking reports of air strikes ordered by Donald Trump on alleged targets in Sokoto State—an extraordinary indictment of Nigeria’s sovereignty and security credibility. A nation that cannot secure itself will eventually be “secured” by others.

One of the year’s deadliest moments came on January 18, 2025, near Suleja, Niger State, when a fuel tanker overturned. Desperate civilians rushed to scoop fuel. Flames followed. Over 100 died. The tragedy was not an accident; it was the brutal intersection of poverty, failed regulation, and state neglect.

Death, indifference, and selective mourning

The death of former President Muhammadu Buhari passed with strikingly little national sympathy—a quiet verdict on his years in power. In contrast, the sudden passing of Olusegun Awolowo on November 27, 2025, at just 62, ripped through the national psyche. His death reminded Nigerians of what public service could look like when intellect, integrity, and energy intersect. His loss felt personal; the nation was unprepared, and its collective soul trembled.

Opposition in self-destructive mode

If the ruling party embodied arrogance, the opposition perfected chaos. The PDP’s unprecedented crisis was fueled largely by Atiku Abubakar’s endless presidential ambition. His political journey—crossing parties, abandoning and returning to PDP repeatedly—has become a case study in elite selfishness. At a moment demanding reinvention, Atiku offered recycling. The result: a party imploding while Nigeria burned.

Institutions under question

The appointment of Joseph Amopitan as INEC Chairman raised fresh fears about electoral integrity. In a climate of mass defections and executive overreach, neutrality is not assumed—it must be proven.

The life imprisonment of the IPOB leader and his transfer to Sokoto prison further deepened national fault lines, reinforcing perceptions of selective justice in a country already fractured by mistrust.

Meanwhile, Dangote’s private refinery, once hailed as salvation, arrived with mixed consequences. Fuel prices remained punishing, underscoring a bitter lesson: private monopolies are not substitutes for humane public policy.

Add to this the controversial new tax law, Tinubu’s frequent and questionable trips to France, and the infamous encounter between Wike and a young military officer in Abuja—each episode a reminder of a leadership class disconnected from the daily humiliation of ordinary Nigerians.

The verdict on 2025

Nigeria in 2025 was not just poorly governed; it was governed without sincerity.

Weak execution in public service delivery.

Low transparency on subsidy savings, debt, and fiscal discipline.

Institutions bent by power, not strengthened by law.

A people abandoned to “reforms” they neither designed nor survived.

The Nigerian soul is bleeding massively.

What must follow

Nigeria urgently needs constitutional review aimed at democratic deepening—not cosmetic amendments, but structural reforms that restore accountability, decentralize power responsibly, and protect citizens from predatory governance.

Economic reform without compassion is punishment. Security without justice is oppression. Power without accountability is tyranny.

As we enter 2026 , Nigerians must continue to agitate relentlessly and uncompromisingly—but consciously and purposefully—for practical, people-centered governance. Not slogans. Not propaganda. Not recycled politicians.

Healing Nigeria will require truth, courage, and sustained civic pressure.

Anything less is surrender.

Nowinta Igbotako, member Editorial Board, Alltimepost.com, an international conflict resolution expert, is a Doctoral Candidate at the Glorious Vision University (GVU), Ogwa, Edo State, Nigeria.