Nigeria is heading towards the “light at the end of the tunnel” as the country grinds through the second year of a cost-of-living crisis, President Bola Tinubu said Friday.
The country has been beset with soaring inflation after Tinubu, elected in 2023, scrapped a costly fuel subsidy and liberalised the exchange rate for the naira currency.
Though the government and international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund have said the reforms were much needed, ordinary Nigerians are going through the worst economic crisis in a generation.
“The past year tested our resolve but through the economic discipline and strategic reform, we achieved what many deemed impossible,” Tinubu said while signing this year’s 55.99 ₦ trillion-naira ($37-billion) budget.
GDP figures released this week showed the Nigerian economy grew at 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024, the fastest in three years.
Tinubu cited the growth — as well as forex reform, a raise to the minimum wage, and an increase in government revenues to 21.6 trillion naira in 2024 — as evidence that the changes were working.
“After the initial turbulence… the take-off was very cloudy and uncertain,” he said. “Today, we see a light at the end of the tunnel.”