The new tax and fiscal reforms announced for Nigeria have created ripples of unease across the nation. To many citizens, as the 2026 implementation date draws near, the measures are not a path to prosperity but a fresh round of pain draped in policy jargon. And so, the public asks, why should this time be different, given their long history of economic mismanagement?
To many Nigerians, these reforms have an uncomfortably familiar ring to them an uncanny echo of 1986, when the IMF and World Bank persuaded the Babangida regime to accept the Structural Adjustment Program. At that time, Nigerians were called upon to tighten their belts in the name of stability, to suffer today for a better tomorrow. What actually happened was a full decade of decline: shrinking industries, rising poverty, and the disintegration of public institutions.
Today’s “bold reforms”-subsidy removal, currency flotation, and aggressive tax expansion-are SAP reborn. The IMF’s 2024 Article IV Consultation lauds Nigeria’s “strong ownership” of these policies, while senior economist Paulo Paz thanked the FIRS in June 2025 for embracing the Fund’s advice. Similar IMF-endorsed templates have appeared elsewhere, including Kenya’s controversial Finance Bill 2024, which also broadens taxes and removes exemptions. The difference lies in how citizens respond.
Despite widespread hardship in Nigeria, outrage has largely been contained online rather than in the streets. And supporters argue that there’s no alternative – that this pain is the necessary cure. But what if the medicine is the poison?
History also warns. Under SAP, Ghana was briefly hailed as a success story before inequality and dependency deepened. After three decades of IMF programs, Jamaica remains trapped in austerity and debt. Malaysia rejected the IMF prescriptions after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, imposed its own capital controls, and recovered more rapidly than its more compliant neighbors. Ethiopia, too, once used state-led investment to drive one of the fastest growth rates in the world.
The result of all this is a clear lesson: that sustainable growth needs an active, strategic state, not a minimalist one. Fiscal prudence has to combine with visionary investment in people, in production, and in innovation.
But the logic is reversed in the current reform sequence. The removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the naira delivered economic shocks that triggered record inflation and hunger. The government now seeks to tax an economy it has already weakened. You cannot tax your way out of poverty without first creating wealth. Overburdening the citizenry and businesses without expanded production drives people into the informal economy.
What Nigeria needs is not reckless spending; what it needs is intelligent fiscal strategy, rooted in national priorities, not foreign prescriptions.
The government should:
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Reduce the cost of governance: Eliminate corruption and reduce bureaucratic waste-the true fiscal reform Nigeria needs.
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Revive Local Production: Provide power, credit, and policy stability to farmers and manufacturers to thrive.
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Launch audited infrastructure investment: Roads, railways, and ports are not luxuries they are the foundation of national productivity. History may be repeating itself, and the Nigerian leadership has appeared to dance once more to the same old tune from Washington. The lessons of SAP remain unlearned: where adjustment forgets the people, recovery is a mirage. If development is to be genuine, it has to be premised on a Nigerian solution to a Nigerian crisis-a solution that places productivity, equity, and human dignity at the center of policy. For while fiscal discipline is important, no nation has ever developed through austerity alone.
