With eight months until the 2027 presidential election, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu told Nigerians yesterday that a second term would bring greater development and "more work" in the first two years. He spoke at the Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, Rwanda, where he spent the day defending the two most painful decisions of his first year in office: removing fuel subsidies and unifying the foreign exchange market.
The timing carried weight. S&P Global Ratings upgraded Nigeria's credit rating yesterday for the first time since 2012, lifting the country one notch from B-minus to B on the back of higher oil prices, increased domestic refining capacity, and the exchange rate reform Tinubu was defending. The agency noted that Nigeria, now a net exporter of refined petroleum products, faced less exposure to Middle East instability than regional peers.
Tinubu's defence of the reforms was blunt. He likened the economic pain to childbirth, telling the forum that temporary hardship would produce long-term benefits. "It is difficult, it is painful, but it is just like the human reproduction process. A woman carries a pregnancy, enjoys the pain of labour, and has a very big smile when she sees a live child," he said. Before the reforms, he noted, 27 of Nigeria's 36 states could not pay salaries. The country was oil-producing but had no working refinery, burning money on fuel imports while subsidising wasteful consumption that bred smuggling and fraud.
Tinubu used the forum to call on African governments to support indigenous investors taking bold risks. He cited Aliko Dangote, whose refinery and petrochemicals complex in Lagos has begun reshaping Nigeria's energy economics, as a prime example of the visionary enterprise the continent needed.
Later in the evening, Tinubu arrived back in Lagos on Air Force One, touching down at 7:12 pm at Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Deputy Governor Femi Hamzat, and Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila received him, along with the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly and other state officials.
The President's message on the campaign trail is clear: the reforms hurt, but they worked. With S&P's upgrade in hand, he has a scorecard to show voters in 2027.
