The reality of poverty On October 21, 2026, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, made a forthright but self-implicating appraisal of President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s reform policies and the precarious situation they have created for most Nigerians at Chatham House in London.
Admitting that “up to 120 per cent of household income is […] On October 21, 2026, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, made a forthright but self-implicating appraisal of President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s reform policies and the precarious situation they have created for most Nigerians at Chatham House in London.
Macroeconomic stability means little to a mother who still cannot afford food.” Daily Trust commends the minister for acknowledging the reality of life in Nigeria: typical poor households are facing severe hardship due to acute cost-of-living pressures arising from the gap between macroeconomic indicators and lived experiences.
Indeed, for the majority of the “working poor” and the unemployed, coping with official food inflation of 19.6 per cent in September, alongside a decline in headline inflation to around 14.6 per cent, means that broader macroeconomic gains have little meaning because they do not translate into affordable basic food.
This is particularly so because spending a higher proportion of household income on food is sustainable only through borrowing, drawing down savings, relying on informal support or adopting coping mechanisms such as skipping meals, switching to lower-quality food and cutting spending on non-essential goods and services. Obviously, this increases debt vulnerability and financial stress while reducing spending on healthcare, education, transport, housing and other necessities. It also makes malnutrition, poorer health outcomes, interrupted schooling and eroded living standards more likely. This is regrettable, especially as President Tinubu has repeatedly stated that Nigeria’s economy is on an irreversible path of growth, citing recent data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
MSEApp News is publishing an original rewrite of this tip for readers, based on reporting associated with Daily Trust.