You Can Continue to Stand With Tinubu — But Is Tinubu Standing With You? By Mohammed Bello Doka

16 September, 2026.

Open your eyes. Look at the filling station where a litre of petrol now sells for as much as N1,470. Look at the market where a bag of rice has become a luxury. Look at the hospital where doctors are striking because the government cannot pay basic allowances. Look at the school where your child now needs a loan to survive. Then ask yourself one simple question. You can continue to stand with Tinubu. But is Tinubu standing with you?

This is not a political attack. This is a reckoning. This is the moment to stop cheering for a man who has spent his first term making your life harder, not easier. And if you think things are bad now, imagine what a second term would look like.

Start with the money in your pocket. In May 2023, President Bola Tinubu stood before Nigerians and announced the removal of the fuel subsidy. He promised the savings would fund education, healthcare, and infrastructure. What followed was not relief. It was a shock. Petrol prices jumped from below N200 to over N1,000, and today they hover around N1,470 per litre. The naira was floated, and it sank. The cost of everything skyrocketed. An energy expert, Olarinre Salako, put it bluntly: thirty million Nigerians were thrown into poverty within one year of the Tinubu presidency because of the floating of the naira and the removal of subsidy. Thirty million people. That is not a statistic. That is your neighbour. That is your cousin. That is you.

The poverty numbers confirm the devastation. Poverty in Nigeria climbed from 56 per cent in 2023 to 61 per cent in 2024, before peaking at 63 per cent in 2025, according to World Bank and IMF data. That is an estimated 140 million people struggling to survive. One hundred and forty million Nigerians living below the poverty line. And what did the government do with the savings from the subsidy removal? The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has accused the Tinubu administration of presiding over an increasingly organised system of grand larceny, citing opaque Federation Account deductions, questionable management of oil revenues, and off-book transactions. In June 2025, gross Federation Account revenue stood at N4.232 trillion, but only N1.818 trillion was eventually distributed. Where did the rest go? Nobody has been able to explain.

Then came the electricity tariff. In April 2024, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission approved a three hundred per cent increase for Band A customers, pushing the price from N68 per kilowatt-hour to N225. The promise was twenty hours of daily supply. The reality is that even APC chieftain, a man who has defended this government at every turn, took to Facebook to lament that he and his family now switch off their air conditioners, fridges, and lights because they cannot afford the bills. If a top party man is suffering, what about the ordinary Nigerian?

Now look at the corruption. This is not speculation. This is documented. A fake agency called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council was discovered to have secured office space in Abuja’s Federal Secretariat, opened bank accounts, and received a N1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 Appropriation Act. The House of Representatives committee investigating the scam uncovered twelve additional fake agencies and fifty-eight suspicious bank accounts linked to the ex-Director General of the fake council. Fifty-eight bank accounts. Twelve fake agencies. All operating inside the federal government. And the President signed the budget containing the allocation for the fake agency into law.

The Auditor-General of the Federation found that N33.75 billion in cash transfers to 3.29 million households could not be verified. There was insufficient evidence to show that the money reached genuine beneficiaries. The African Democratic Congress called it an organised racket. The cash transfer office disputed the finding, but the question remains. Where did N33.75 billion meant for the poorest Nigerians go?

Then there is the FBI revelation. In August 2026, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed in a sworn declaration filed before a US District Court that President Bola Tinubu was investigated over alleged drug-trafficking activities in the early 1990s. The FBI stated that the records were compiled in furtherance of an investigation of multiple individuals for drug trafficking crimes. The ruling did not find that Tinubu committed a crime. But the confirmation alone raises questions that the Presidency has refused to answer substantively.

The National Assembly is no better. Human rights lawyer Femi Falana accused President Tinubu of enabling budget padding, citing the insertion of a N1.4 billion road project in Ogun State into the budget of the National Commission for Almajiri and Out-of-School Children Education, a commission that has no business building roads. The commission itself was allocated N8.4 billion for road infrastructure projects in Ogun, Ekiti, and Katsina states, entirely outside its educational mandate. Falana said the President allows it because he has the right to veto illegal insertions but refuses to use it.

The National Assembly also spent N110 billion on vehicles and support allowances for lawmakers, a scheme the Federal High Court in Lagos declared unlawful. The court found that the spending of N40 billion on 465 vehicles and N70 billion in support allowances breached procurement laws and constitutional obligations. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project gave Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas seven days to recover the money. To this day, the lawmakers have not refunded a single naira.

And while Nigerians suffer, the Presidency has been living large. Records show that President Tinubu spent N37.6 billion on presidential trips and travel-related expenses between June 2023 and April 2026. He made fifty-two foreign trips and spent approximately 261 days outside Nigeria. He visited at least thirty countries. In 2024 alone, travel spending hit N25.27 billion. First Lady Oluremi Tinubu received N700.7 million in foreign exchange for five overseas trips between 2023 and 2024.

The 2026 budget allocated N15.13 billion for the purchase of thirty-nine Sport Utility Vehicles. That translates to N387 million per vehicle. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project challenged the President to publish the chassis numbers and questioned whether the government was buying Rolls-Royce Cullinans and Bentley Bentaygas with public money. The same budget contained N962.83 billion for SUVs and empowerment projects that are not national priorities. There was also N9.36 billion for Tinubu and Vice President Shettima’s travel, food, and refreshments in the 2026 budget.

Now look at what the government is not spending money on. President Tinubu promised during his campaign to raise the health budget to at least ten per cent of total federal expenditure. He has failed. The 2026 budget allocated N2.48 trillion to health, representing just 4.2 per cent of the total budget. Health spending has consistently remained below six per cent since 2023. The Nigerian Medical Association described the allocation as paltry, noting that it amounts to approximately N10,400 per citizen for the entire year, or about N870 per citizen per month for healthcare. Out-of-pocket expenses now account for over seventy per cent of healthcare costs, meaning ordinary Nigerians are paying for a system their taxes should be funding.

Education is no better. The student loan scheme, NELFUND, was presented as a solution to the rising cost of education. But the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project described it as a vicious cycle of poverty. After making education more costly, the same government set up NELFUND and now proudly gives young Nigerians loans to cover school fees that many of their parents can no longer easily pay. A student loan is not a scholarship. It is a liability. It is debt. And it burdens young Nigerians before they even start their careers.

Then there is the handling of the Niger coup. In July 2023, President Tinubu, as ECOWAS chairman, imposed heavy sanctions on Niger, including border closures and halting electricity exports. ECOWAS threatened military intervention but never followed through. The sanctions failed to restore constitutional order. Instead, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso withdrew from ECOWAS and formed the Alliance of Sahel States. The head of the ECOWAS Commission, Omar Alieu Touray, warned that the region faced the risk of disintegration. The withdrawal disrupted existing security frameworks and increased the burden on the Nigerian military. The Chief of Air Staff confirmed that the exit of the Sahel states increased the responsibility of the Armed Forces of Nigeria and significantly affected the capacity of the Multinational Joint Task Force to conduct joint operations against Boko Haram and ISWAP.

The result has been devastating. Data from the Mass Atrocities Tracker shows that at least 19,980 people were killed across Nigeria between 2023 and April 2026. At least 12,362 people were abducted over the same period. In 2023, 4,416 people were killed. In 2024, the figure rose to 5,353. In 2025, it increased further to 6,518. The killings are rising, not falling. And when President Tinubu’s aide, Bayo Onanuga, was confronted with these figures, he accused the media of exaggerating insecurity.

Now look at the tax reforms. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 took effect on January 1, 2026. The National Association of Nigerian Students has condemned the implementation, describing the process as fundamentally flawed, poorly communicated, and constitutionally questionable. The student body accused the Federal Inland Revenue Service of failing woefully in its responsibility to design and execute an effective, inclusive, and nationwide public enlightenment process. The Nigeria Labour Congress has also rejected the tax policies, with the Head of Information, Benson Upah, warning that soon oxygen will be taxed. The NLC accused the government of pushing workers to the edge and insisted the policies were introduced without proper consultation. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has given the President a seven-day deadline to publish certified true copies of the tax laws, following allegations that the legislations were altered after approval by the National Assembly. The organisation called for an independent panel of inquiry to investigate the discrepancies, warning that any unlawful alterations would violate the 1999 Constitution.

So here is the question you must answer. If Tinubu has done all of this in his first term, what will he do in his second? If he removed the subsidy and watched thirty million Nigerians fall into poverty, what will he remove next? If he approved a budget with N15.13 billion for thirty-nine SUVs while health spending remained below five per cent, what will he approve in four more years? If he watched his party chieftain switch off his air conditioner because of electricity bills and did nothing, what will he do when it is your turn? If he allowed a fake agency to receive N1.3 billion from the federal budget, how many more fake agencies will he allow in a second term? If the FBI confirmed he was investigated for drug trafficking and he refused to address it, what else is he hiding? If he imposed tax laws that students and workers across the country have rejected as punitive and undemocratic, what other burdens will he place on your back in another four years?

You can continue to stand with Tinubu. That is your right. But ask yourself this. When you stand with him, who is standing with you? When you defend him on social media, who is defending your children’s education? When you cheer his policies, who is cheering for your family’s healthcare? When you wear his campaign cap, who is wearing the cap of your hunger?

The evidence is everywhere. The poverty is real. The corruption is documented. The suffering is measurable. The question is not whether Tinubu deserves your loyalty. The question is whether your loyalty deserves this government.

Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via bellodoka82@gmail.com

Abuja Network News