Let’s face the bitter truth: cooking gas has now hit **₦2,000 per kilogram** in many parts of Nigeria. To fill a common 12.5kg cylinder, you now need about ₦25,000. For an average family, that is more than half of what they have to survive on for a whole month, and we haven’t even talked about buying the actual food to cook.
It is deeply painful because this is coming from a government that always brags about having the biggest “political structure” across the 36 states. But looking at things today, it is clear they don’t have a single structure to reduce the suffering and hunger of the citizens they govern.
Promises Upon Promises While Life Gets Harder
Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over power in 2023, Nigerians have heard nothing but promises. First, they removed the fuel subsidy and stripped away support from almost every basic utility, telling us to endure the temporary pain.
But fast forward to today, what are we seeing? The government is still borrowing massive loans left, right, and center. When you ask questions, they tell you they are building the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway and the Badagry-Sokoto road.
But Nigerians are asking: What happened to the trillions of naira saved from the fuel subsidy removal? You cannot drive a beautiful highway when your stomach is completely empty.
The crisis has entered every part of our daily lives:
The Kitchen: People are abandoning their gas cylinders to go look for charcoal and firewood because ₦2,000/kg is simply a luxury.
The Market: The price of staples like rice, beans, and garri keeps climbing every single week because transportation costs are out of hand.
The Farms: Farmers can no longer go to their farms because bandits and terrorists have taken over rural areas
Making the Voters Too Poor to Fight Back
There is a very wicked cycle happening here. The people suffering the most from these harsh economic policies are the grassroots—the market women, the artisans, the laborers, and the rural poor. Ironically, these are the exact same people who queue up under the hot sun to vote for this government during elections.
By keeping the grassroots trapped in extreme poverty, the political class creates a system of dependency. They make people so hungry that when the next election comes around, a small cash handout or a bag of rice is enough to buy back their loyalty.
Even worse, the price of internet data has become so expensive that the common man can barely afford to stay online to listen to political criticisms or understand how they are being misgoverned. The government takes heavy advantage of this.
They know that the people making noise and complaining on Twitter or Facebook don’t even have voter’s cards, while the real voters are offline, struggling daily just to find their next meal.
A government’s success should not be measured by big road projects built with loans. It should be measured by how easily a mother can feed her children and how safely a farmer can cultivate his land.
The grassroots must realize that the politicians bragging about “structure” are only powerful because the people keep allowing themselves to be used. It is time for Nigerians to open their eyes and demand real governance, not just empty statistics and endless promises.