ToPresident Bola Ahmed Tinubu

On December 3, 2023, an Army drone struck Tudun Biri village in Kaduna during a Maulud celebration, killing at least 85 civilians, most of them women and children.

ReliefWeb; HRW

The Tudun Biri strike hit twice: a first bomb fell on the gathering, a second on the people who came to help.

Wikipedia

The Air Force first denied the Tudun Biri strike, then admitted it had mistaken worshippers for bandits.

HRW

Survivors said there were no bandits in Tudun Biri; a villager later sued for ₦33 billion on behalf of 100 victims.

Tribune

In September 2024, an airstrike at Jika da Kolo in Kaduna killed at least 24 civilians near a mosque.

Daily Trust

On April 11, 2026, an Air Force strike on the Jilli market in Yobe killed between 100 and 200 civilians.

Wikipedia; Vanguard; Leadership

Defence Minister Christopher Musa defended the Jilli strike, insisting the dead “were not innocent civilians” but people doing business with terrorists.

Vanguard

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights condemned the Jilli strike, citing over 200 civilian deaths.

ACHPR

The Associated Press counted at least 500 civilians killed by mistaken Nigerian airstrikes since 2017.

AP/PBS

On June 1, 2025, a military jet bombed vigilantes pursuing bandits in Zamfara, killing at least 20 people.

Al Jazeera

Human Rights Watch found erroneous airstrikes had become “a recurring feature” of operations, including at least 16 vigilantes killed in Zamfara in January 2025.

HRW

On March 7, 2024, gunmen abducted over 280 pupils and teachers from schools in Kuriga, Kaduna.

multiple

On the night of May 24, 2024, raiders attacked Kuchi village in Niger, killing 10 and abducting about 160 people, lingering two hours to cook, make tea and loot before leaving.

BBC

On September 1, 2024, ISWAP gunmen killed at least 128 men and boys at Mafa village in Yobe; local figures put the toll above 170.

UN OCHA; TheCable

The Mafa attackers — about 150 fighters on more than 50 motorcycles — planted IEDs to ambush the rescuers.

Al Jazeera; Reuters

Mafa’s residents had returned home only weeks earlier after a government official assured them it was safe.

TheCable, citing the New York Times

Amnesty International documented 1,336 people killed in Plateau between December 2023 and February 2024.

Amnesty

Amnesty recorded 29,554 people displaced across three Plateau local governments in that same three-month window.

Amnesty

The 2023 Christmas Eve massacres in Plateau killed at least 195 people across more than 20 villages, with survivors saying help took over 12 hours to arrive.

Amnesty; Vatican News

At least 51 people, including 15 children, were killed in the midnight attack on Zike-Kimakpa in Plateau on April 13–14, 2025.

HumAngle; CSI

The Irigwe Youth Movement said it had warned security forces hours before the Zike attack; no one was intercepted.

HumAngle

On the rainy night of June 13, 2025, militants killed about 150 people, mostly Christians, at Yelwata in Benue, the state long called Nigeria’s food basket.

Christianity Today

Nine suspected perpetrators of the Yelwata massacre were not arraigned until February 1, 2026, nearly seven months later.

Christianity Today

Brigadier General Musa Uba, commander of the 25 Task Force Brigade, was ambushed, captured and executed by ISWAP in Borno on November 14, 2025.

Premium Times; Anadolu

On November 17, 2025, gunmen killed a vice-principal and abducted 25 schoolgirls from a school in Maga, Kebbi.

CNN; Channels

A presidential adviser confirmed the Kebbi girls were taken “just moments after a military detachment left the area,” and the governor demanded to know who ordered the withdrawal.

CNNAlleged

On November 21, 2025, gunmen abducted 303 schoolchildren — some as young as five — and 12 teachers from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, Niger, the largest school kidnapping in Nigerian history.

NPR; AP

Families in Papiri said they had asked for security before the attack and no one came; an escaped pupil said neither police, military nor civil defence responded.

AP

Bandits raided three schools in Oriire, Oyo, on May 15, 2026, abducting 49 people and beheading mathematics teacher Michael Oyedokun on video two days later.

Guardian; PM News

The New Humanitarian found at least 816 pupils taken in 22 school attacks since January 2023, sustaining a kidnapping industry the government feeds through ransom.

The New Humanitarian

A Good Governance Africa researcher said “one of the major reasons for the continued rise in mass abductions is the government’s ransom response to the problem”.

The New Humanitarian

Borno Governor Babagana Zulum warned in May 2025 that only one of more than 300 towns in Marte local government remained under government control.

Peoples Dispatch

Zulum said plainly that Boko Haram attacks were happening almost daily and that Borno was “gradually losing ground”.

Reuters; allAfrica

In October 2025, Boko Haram seized the Borno border town of Kirawa after Cameroonian troops withdrew, forcing more than 5,000 people into Cameroon.

Wikipedia

Boko Haram briefly retook Marte in May 2025, killing seven soldiers and forcing 20,000 people to flee.

Peoples Dispatch

ISWAP overran the 27 Task Force Brigade at Buni Gari, Yobe, beheading four soldiers and seizing anti-aircraft guns.

allAfrica

Boko Haram launched a drone attack on a base in Damboa on December 24, 2024, injuring at least six soldiers and signalling new aerial capability.

Daily Trust

Senator Ali Ndume said soldiers “lacked adequate ammunition and had to retreat” when terrorists overran Ngoshe and Pulka.

Guardian

The “super camp” strategy concentrated troops and ceded rural Borno to insurgents, leaving some communities without any state presence for over a decade.

Daily Trust; ICRC

On January 4, 2026, gunmen raided a village in Niger State, killing at least 30 people and abducting others.

CNN

Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM claimed its first incursion into Nigerian territory in an October 2025 attack on a military patrol in Kwara, and suspected Boko Haram fighters later killed over 100 people in Woro, Kwara.

HRW; Blueprint

Security firm Beacon Consulting recorded 13,346 people killed and 9,207 abducted across 667 of 774 local governments between the inauguration and its count.

Beacon Consulting

Amnesty reported attackers killed 123 people in Tinubu’s first month in office.

Amnesty

Terrorism deaths rose 6% in 2024 to the highest toll since 2020, and civilians became the most-targeted group at 62% of deaths, up from 21% in 2023.

Global Terrorism Index

Nigeria ranked 6th on the 2025 Global Terrorism Index and accounted for 6% of the world’s terrorism deaths.

Institute for Economics & Peace

Despite security spending rising from ₦1.25 trillion in 2023 to ₦4.91 trillion in 2025, insecurity spread across all six geopolitical zones.

Daily Trust

On November 26, 2025, Tinubu declared Nigeria’s first-ever nationwide security emergency — and attacks continued regardless.

Premium Times

As part of that emergency, the police recalled 11,566 officers from VIP guard duties in a single day.

police statement

Tinubu defended undisclosed terms for hostage releases by saying “the end justifies the means”.

Punch

Tinubu first pledged state police to the 36 governors in February 2024 but did not transmit the State Police Bill to the Senate until June 2026, more than two years later.

The Nation; Punch

The United States and Nigeria conducted a joint operation against ISWAP and Boko Haram on May 15, 2026, with foreign troops killing about 175 militants on Nigerian soil.

Defence Headquarters

The US struck targets in Sokoto on December 25, 2025, after more than 80 civil-society groups accused Tinubu of an “abdication of sovereignty”.

AFRICOM; BusinessDay

Since the 2014 Chibok abduction, a Senate committee counted more than 1,680 children kidnapped and 180 schools attacked, a toll that kept rising under Tinubu.

Guardian

The mass 2025 abductions forced the closure of schools across the north and 47 Federal Unity Colleges, deepening the out-of-school crisis.

NPR; HRW

Tinubu cancelled trips to the G20 and the EU-AU summit only after the November 2025 abductions and a church attack in Kwara forced his hand.

Al Jazeera; France 24

Munya local-government chairman in Niger said gunmen raided Kuchi village, killed 10 and took at least 160 people, “mostly women and children”.

BBC

JNIM and a westward-expanding bandit network financed group relocations through ransom, spreading the kidnapping economy into Kwara and Kebbi.

The New Humanitarian

A 13-year-old girl, Khadija, was among those taken from St. Mary’s as her father Isa Nazifi waited weeping at the school gate.

HRW

In his inaugural address on May 29, 2023, Tinubu announced “the fuel subsidy is gone,” with no compensation in place.

State House

Petrol rose from ₦175 a litre in May 2023 to ₦1,030 by October 2024 — about 488% — and breached ₦1,000 again in 2025.

Punch

After the Dangote refinery suspended petrol loading as crude passed $80 in March 2026, NNPC stations in Abuja raised pump prices from ₦875 to ₦975 a litre overnight.

Vanguard; Business Post

The naira fell from roughly ₦460 to the dollar in mid-2023 to an official record low of ₦1,689.88 in November 2024.

FMDQ

After the June 2023 float, the naira lost about 70% of its value, including a one-day fall of roughly 36%.

Bloomberg

Headline inflation peaked at 34.80% in December 2024; food inflation reached 39.84%.

NBS CPI report, January 2025

Food inflation peaked at 40.87% in June 2024, the highest in Nigeria’s recorded history.

NBS

Inflation was back at 15.93% by May 2026, with food inflation accelerating for a fourth straight month to 17.8% after the March 2026 fuel shock.

NBS; Trading Economics

Major firms recorded ₦2.17 trillion in foreign-exchange losses in 2024 as the naira fell.

NBS

The cost of preparing a single pot of Jollof rice rose to ₦17,000 by March 2024, up from ₦13,106 the previous October.

Nairametrics

By October 2025 a basic food basket cost almost ₦97,000 — about ₦27,000 more than the entire monthly minimum wage.

ICIR; NBS

The minimum wage rose 289% over nine years while the cost of a basic food basket rose more than 645%, leaving the lowest earners worse off in real terms.

ICIR

The NCC approved a 50% telecom tariff rise in January 2025, the first in over a decade.

NCC

MTN tripled its 15GB weekly bundle from ₦2,000 to ₦6,000; one creator said it hit “now when a lot of people can’t rent shops and have taken their business online”.

BBC

Internet subscriptions fell by 3.41 million between January and July 2025, partly from tariff-driven unaffordability, even as Nigerians spent ₦721 billion a month on data.

Ripples Nigeria

The Band A electricity tariff jumped 241% in April 2024, from ₦66 to ₦225 a kilowatt-hour.

NERC; Nairametrics

The tariff hit the 15% of customers who use about 40% of the power, many of whom never got the promised 20 hours of supply.

Channels; NERC

The national grid collapsed on March 28, 2024, falling from 2,984MW to zero within an hour as all 21 connected plants went down.

TCN

The grid collapsed at least 12 times across 2024 and 2025, three times in under a month between December 2025 and January 2026.

Punch

In one failure, generation fell from 3,825MW to 39MW within minutes.

Punch

Against installed capacity of about 13,625MW, actual output hovers around 5,000MW for more than 230 million people.

Punch

By mid-2025, over 60% of manufacturers had left the grid, shifting the cost burden onto Band A households.

Punch

The World Bank estimates power outages cost Nigeria about $29 billion a year.

Punch

The Manufacturers Association says energy is now 35–40% of production costs; 767 firms shut in 2023, costing 18,000 jobs.

MAN; Punch

Federal power-sector arrears to generating companies reached ₦4 trillion, with total liabilities heading toward ₦6.2 trillion.

Punch

Cooking gas reached ₦1,500–₦1,700 a kilogram, and as high as ₦2,000 in parts of the southeast by 2026.

Vanguard; Bloomberg

The kerosene many poor homes cook with passed ₦3,900 a litre in Sokoto by April 2026.

NBS; Tribune

Rising gas and kerosene prices pushed families back to firewood and charcoal, reversing years of clean-cooking progress.

Bloomberg

Imported rice rose 184% — from about ₦793 a kilogram in May 2023 to over ₦2,255 by October 2025.

ICIR; NBS

Palm oil rose 81% year-on-year, from ₦1,425 a litre in December 2023 to ₦2,582 a year later.

NBS

Brown beans, the cheapest protein staple, rose 224% year-on-year by November 2024.

NBS

NNPCL was the only major revenue agency to remit less in 2024, paying just ₦0.6 trillion to the federation account, down from ₦1.1 trillion.

World Bank, May 2025

The World Bank called NNPCL “a key source of revenue leakages” and urged full disclosure of oil proceeds.

World Bank; Punch

NNPCL remitted no interim dividends to the federation account through 2025, a ₦2.17 trillion year-to-date shortfall.

FAAC; Punch

Tinubu approved writing off about $1.42 billion and ₦5.57 trillion in NNPC legacy debts without matching cash inflows.

NUPRC

Oil output averaged about 1.56 million barrels a day in 2024, below the 1.78 million budget benchmark, and missed the OPEC quota in nine of twelve months in 2025.

Channels; Punch

Quota shortfalls from January 2025 to January 2026 reached about 18.12 million barrels, an estimated $1.31 billion lost.

Discovery Alert; Punch

The Dangote refinery accused NNPC of failing to deliver even the 385,000 barrels a day it had agreed, calling the supply “peanut”.

Reuters; Nairametrics

NNPC suspended the naira-for-crude deal in early 2025, saying all crude was committed to forward contracts until 2030.

BusinessDay

By June 2026, Dangote’s refinery sold petrol at ₦1,250 a litre while imports landed at ₦1,117, leaving Nigerians paying a premium.

Legit.ng

The CBN forced banks with international licences to raise minimum capital tenfold, from ₦50 billion to ₦500 billion, by March 2026.

CBN

By October 2025, only six of Nigeria’s thirteen listed banks had met the new capital floor.

BusinessDay

Eight top banks booked ₦1.96 trillion in loan impairments in nine months of 2025, up 49%, as COVID-era forbearance ended.

Punch

SMEs, which drive 48% of GDP and 84% of jobs, faced a credit drought while the five largest banks made a combined ₦4.6 trillion pre-tax profit in 2024.

Punch

Only about 5.7 million of more than 12 million electricity customers were metered in early 2024, leaving the rest to arbitrary estimated billing.

NERC; BusinessDay

The World Bank’s April 2026 update found poverty rose from 56% in 2023 to 63% in 2025 — about 140 million people — concluding poverty “has yet to begin declining”.

World Bank; Vanguard

The IMF’s June 2026 report warned that “conditions for many Nigerians remain difficult”.

IMF; Vanguard

The IMF found only 9.2 million of a targeted 15 million households enrolled in the cash-transfer scheme, receiving at most three ₦25,000 payments since 2023.

Leadership

Diageo sold its majority stake in Guinness Nigeria in June 2024, one of sixteen multinationals to exit or downsize within three years of the reforms.

Vanguard; Punch

A former chamber-of-commerce research director estimated the corporate exodus cost ₦94 trillion in lost output over five years.

Punch

Shoprite completed its Nigerian shutdown in early 2026 after 20 years, with analysts estimating ₦1.4 trillion lost and thousands of jobs gone.

Vanguard

Over 30% of poultry farms shut in the first half of 2024 as feed and maize prices soared.

Guardian

The naira’s fall meant Nigerians could no longer afford imported medicines, with patients selling land and cars or going home to die.

medical accounts

The CBN raised interest rates to a record 27.5% by late 2024 to fight inflation, choking credit for the businesses already crushed by the naira’s fall.

CBN; Reuters

Telecom operators tripled some data bundles in 2025, and roughly 20 million Nigerians remained offline as the digital economy the government promised to widen instead shrank.

Ripples Nigeria

Major firms reported a combined ₦1.96 trillion wiped out by currency losses, with several delisting or scaling back Nigerian operations.

NBS; Leadership

The expatriate, cybersecurity and FOB levies were each rolled out and then suspended within months, a churn that left businesses unable to plan.

DLA Piper; Reuters

The government conceded any late-2025 price easing came from emergency market interventions, an admission of how severe the earlier spikes had been.

FMAFS

Nigeria’s GDP per capita in dollar terms fell sharply after the float, leaving citizens poorer on paper even as the economy was reported to grow.

World Bank; analyses

A single piece of bread in Kubwa, Abuja rose from ₦700 in May 2023 to ₦1,100 by May 2024, raised ₦100 at a time so customers would not abandon bread.

Nairametrics

A jumbo loaf at Lagos stalls rose from ₦1,500 in 2023 to ₦2,500 by May 2024.

Nairametrics

A 50kg bag of wheat flour, bread’s basic input, rose from about ₦32,000 in May 2023 to around ₦62,000 a year later.

Nairametrics

A carton of bakers’ yeast rose from ₦22,000 in December 2023 to ₦70,000; bakers’ butter rose from ₦18,000 to ₦42,000.

BusinessDay

A single egg rose from ₦150 to ₦300, and a crate from about ₦2,000 in early 2023 to ₦6,000 by mid-2024.

BusinessDay

By 2026 a crate of eggs reached ₦8,500 in some shops, with farmers warning it could hit ₦10,000.

Guardian

A sachet of “pure water” rose to ₦50 each, and a 20-sachet bag in Abuja from ₦150–₦250 to ₦500–₦600 by early 2024.

The Sun

A carton of Indomie noodles rose from ₦6,000–₦6,500 in February 2023 to ₦17,500–₦18,000 a year later, up 177%.

BusinessDay

A single pack of Indomie rose from ₦350 to ₦500 in two weeks in early 2024.

Daily Post

The Gala sausage roll — a ₦50 staple for decades — was relaunched at ₦200 for the classic size and ₦500 for a larger one.

BusinessDay

A carton of Peak evaporated milk rose from about ₦14,400 to ₦20,500; powdered Peak from ₦21,000 to ₦31,000.

Nigerian Price

The price of sugar rose 103% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024.

BusinessDay

A 50cl bottle of Coca-Cola held steady at ₦250 for years, then rose to ₦350 by 2024 as the bottler cited devaluation.

BusinessDay

One kilogram of tomatoes rose 320% year-on-year, from ₦547 in June 2023 to ₦2,302 a year later.

NBS

A big basket of tomatoes rose from about ₦50,000 in 2023 to as much as ₦150,000 in 2024, sending shoppers to cucumber and pawpaw substitutes.

BusinessDay; Nairametrics

One kilogram of white garri rose 182% year-on-year, from ₦403 to ₦1,136.

NBS

A four-litre measure of garri rose from about ₦1,500 in 2023 to ₦4,000 in 2024, earning it the nickname “gold”.

BusinessDay

One kilogram of yam rose 296% year-on-year, from ₦511 to ₦2,022.

NBS

One kilogram of brown beans rose from ₦651 in June 2023 to ₦2,293 a year later.

NBS

The WAEC registration fee reached ₦27,000 by 2026, before bank charges and per-subject fees.

MySchoolGist; Legit.ng

The NECO external fee reached ₦30,000 in 2026, with walk-in registration at ₦43,000.

NECO

Coartem, the front-line malaria drug, rose from ₦3,300 in November 2023 to ₦4,000 by April 2024, and as high as ₦6,500 in some Abuja surveys.

Punch; Daily Post

By 2026 a full course of malaria treatment cost ₦4,800–₦5,200, up from about ₦1,500 a year earlier — a tripling.

Leadership

Lactogen baby formula became so dear that one mother of twins spent ₦52,000 a month at ₦13,000 a tin.

LightRay! Media

Lagos BRT fares rose from ₦375 to ₦500 on the Ikorodu–Oshodi route after the state ended its post-subsidy rebate.

Citizens Compass

Transport fares roughly tripled between 2020 and 2026, with danfo, keke and minibus riders absorbing the worst of it after the subsidy went.

BusinessDay; Ridetransport

A bottle of groundnut oil that sold for about ₦1,200 in 2023 passed ₦2,500 by 2024 as cooking-oil prices doubled.

NBS; market surveys

A tin of tomato paste rose from about ₦150 to ₦400 over the period, pricing a basic stew ingredient out of many kitchens.

market surveys

A bunch of plantain rose from about ₦700 to over ₦2,000 in major markets between 2023 and 2025.

market surveys

The cost of refilling a 12.5kg cooking-gas cylinder rose to about ₦22,382 by NBS data, more than a quarter of the monthly minimum wage.

NBS; Vanguard

A 50kg bag of rice cost between ₦110,000 and ₦120,000 in 2025 markets, beyond a full month’s minimum wage.

market surveys

Garri, the food of last resort for the poor, rose so far that traders nicknamed it “gold” as families rationed it by the cup.

BusinessDay

Tinubu signed the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 on June 26, 2025, introducing a 4% Development Levy on company profits from January 1, 2026.

PwC; EY

The Act introduced a 5% fossil-fuel surcharge, sparing only kerosene, cooking gas, CNG and renewables.

EY

The Act raised Capital Gains Tax from 10% to 30% and folded the education, NITDA, NASENI and Police Trust Fund levies into one 4% Development Levy.

PwC

Customs imposed a 4% Free-on-Board levy on all imports, which importers estimated added ₦4 trillion a year to freight costs passed on to consumers.

IMAN; BusinessDay

The 4% FOB charge pushed the cost of clearing some goods up by as much as 186% before its suspension.

BusinessDay

The finance minister suspended the 4% FOB levy on September 15, 2025 after sustained protest from manufacturers and importers.

Reuters; Punch

The CBN’s 0.5% cybersecurity levy on all electronic transactions — about ₦3 trillion a year against 2023 payment volumes — was suspended on May 14, 2024 after public outcry.

NIBSS; The Nation

The government began deducting a ₦50 Electronic Money Transfer Levy on transfers of ₦10,000 and above from December 1, 2024, prompting POS operators to raise their charges.

Punch

The Expatriate Employment Levy — $15,000 per director and $10,000 per other expatriate a year — was suspended on March 8, 2024 after backlash from employers.

DLA Piper; Afriwise

A nationwide protest against the 2025 tax laws collapsed in January 2026 amid allegations that organisers took a ₦300 million bribe.

LeadershipAlleged

The PDP alleged that “illegal insertions” were made to the gazetted 2025 tax laws after the National Assembly passed them.

Ecofin AgencyAlleged

The new regime requires a citizen to pay a 20% deposit before challenging a tax assessment and grants arrest powers to tax officials.

analysesAlleged

Tinubu insisted in January 2026 that “no substantial issue has been established that warrants a disruption of the reform process,” dismissing calls to suspend the tax laws.

Daily Trust

The NLC said the tax laws were imposed without consulting workers, the largest tax-paying group: “we do not even know what these laws contain”.

Punch

The reintroduced 4% FOB levy plus a new vehicle-valuation system pushed the clearing cost of a used Mercedes from about ₦4–5 million to ₦10 million in August 2025.

Nairametrics

POS operators, the lifeline for the unbanked, raised their charges after the ₦50 transfer levy began, taxing the poorest cash users.

Punch

Tinubu suspended Humanitarian Affairs Minister Betta Edu in January 2024 after a leaked memo showed her ordering ₦585.2 million in grant funds paid into a private account.

multiple

Nigeria’s own financial rules deem any officer who pays public money into a private account to have done so “with fraudulent intention”.

Financial Regulations 2009

The EFCC picked up NSIPA chief Halima Shehu over ₦44 billion moved from the agency to suspicious accounts in December 2023.

multiple

The report of the EFCC probe into the Humanitarian Ministry, ordered in January 2024, was still unpublished ten months later when Edu’s replacement arrived.

multiple

SERAP urged Tinubu to probe over ₦57 billion declared missing or unaccounted for in the Humanitarian Ministry in 2021 alone, per the Auditor-General.

SERAPAlleged

The Hajj Commission chairman and staff were arrested over the alleged mismanagement of a ₦90 billion subsidy in 2024.

multipleAlleged

Former CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele was arraigned over the alleged irregular allocation of $4.5 billion and ₦2.8 billion, and a separate charge of obtaining $6.23 million by false pretence.

multipleAlleged

Former Power Minister Saleh Mamman was convicted on all 12 counts and sentenced in absentia to 75 years on May 13, 2026 over ₦33.8 billion tied to the Mambilla and Zungeru projects, then arrested at 3:30 a.m. days later after fleeing.

Channels; Vanguard

The EFCC arrested the head of the Energy Commission of Nigeria in May 2026 over an alleged ₦500 billion scandal.

PM NewsAlleged

Tinubu suspended Rural Electrification Agency chief Ahmad Salihijo and three directors in March 2024 over a ₦1.2 billion fraudulent expenditure; an EFCC interim report later put the figure as high as ₦12.4 billion.

Premium Times; LeadershipAlleged

The 2021 Auditor-General’s report flagged the Rural Electrification Agency with the single largest contract-award infraction among federal agencies, ₦2.117 billion.

ICIR

That report uncovered over ₦197.72 billion in contract fraud across agencies and ₦3.4 trillion in total financial infractions, including ₦100 billion at NBET.

ICIR

The EFCC arrested a contractor over ₦37.17 billion allegedly laundered through the Humanitarian Ministry across 38 bank accounts.

PunchAlleged

The Tinubu government never published the NDDC forensic audit covering 13,777 projects and over ₦6 trillion, despite a court order.

Premium Times; Leadership

The Niger Delta Affairs Minister declared the NDDC audit report “missing” in August 2024.

Daily Trust

FCT Minister Nyesom Wike alleged a former minister’s wife collected ₦48 billion over a year through the NDDC “to train Niger Delta women”.

Premium TimesAlleged

SERAP sued the government over an alleged missing ₦825 billion and $2.5 billion meant for refinery repairs.

SERAPAlleged

SERAP sued Tinubu over the failure to prosecute contractors who took over ₦167 billion from 31 agencies — including ₦100 billion from NBET — without doing the work.

Nairametrics; Vanguard

SERAP told Tinubu in December 2025 to account for ₦14 trillion in fuel-subsidy savings.

SERAP

A Senate Public Accounts Committee rejected NNPCL’s explanation for ₦210 trillion unaccounted for in its 2017–2023 statements, calling the company’s no-show “offensive evasiveness”.

Premium Times; BusinessDay

The 2022 Auditor-General’s report found NNPCL failed to account for ₦22.3 billion plus tens of millions of dollars, pounds and euros.

Premium Times

The Port Harcourt refinery alone owed ₦4.22 trillion in 2024, with Kaduna and Warri owing ₦2.39 trillion and ₦2.06 trillion despite repeated failed turnarounds.

NUPRC

A governors’ audit alleged NNPCL under-remitted $42.37 billion to the federation account between 2011 and 2017, which NNPCL rejected.

Periscope; PunchAlleged

NEITI reported Nigeria lost $1.4 billion to unpaid gas royalties and flaring penalties.

NEITI

Nigeria lost over ₦710 billion to gas flaring in just January–April 2025.

NOSDRA; Business Post

The Ogoniland cleanup remained mired in graft claims and poor work, and UNEP ended its technical role at HYPREP in 2024.

BusinessDay; UNEP

A Premium Times investigation found at least 40 senior Customs officers indicted in an EFCC probe into over ₦12 billion in smuggling bribes, none of them prosecuted.

Premium TimesAlleged

NAFDAC evacuated more than 100 truckloads of fake, expired and banned drugs worth over ₦1 trillion from the Idumota, Onitsha and Aba markets in early 2025, exposing how falsified medicines reach the vulnerable.

Channels; Nairametrics

The government bought a new Airbus A330 presidential jet reported at about $150 million during the cost-of-living crisis.

multiple

The 2023 supplementary budget allocated ₦5 billion for a presidential yacht; though the National Assembly declined the request, the yacht reportedly arrived anyway.

BusinessDay; Daily Post

The Presidential Air Fleet swallowed ₦26.38 billion in its first 18 months, including a single ₦5.08 billion payment in April 2024.

Pulse

The government budgeted ₦1.5 billion for vehicles for the Office of the First Lady, an office the Constitution does not recognise.

Daily Post

About ₦21 billion went to completing the Vice President’s residence, prioritised by Wike over competing projects.

Newsscroll

The 2024 budget allocated about ₦40.62 billion to renovate the State House, the highest first-year sum ever and over 150% more than any predecessor’s.

ICIR

The 2025 budget put ₦10 billion toward “solarising” the Presidential Villa, followed by ₦7 billion more in 2026, as the national grid kept collapsing.

Sahara Reporters

The State House spent ₦36.3 billion on international travel in 2024 alone, part of ₦83 billion in total travel that year.

Open Treasury; Sahara Reporters

The Presidency spent at least ₦34.39 billion buying foreign currency for travel across 2024–2025.

GovSpend; BudgIT; Punch

By November 2025, Tinubu had made over 46 foreign trips totalling about 192 days — more than half a year abroad.

Business Hallmark

An analysis found a weak negative link between Tinubu’s foreign trips and the capital importation they were meant to attract.

Business Hallmark

Nigeria spent about ₦2.78 billion on airfares and allowances for an over-large COP28 delegation in Dubai in December 2023 before Tinubu announced cuts to delegation sizes.

Nigerian Democratic Report

Tinubu appointed 48 ministers, the largest cabinet of the Fourth Republic, costed at over ₦5 billion to maintain across four years.

The Whistler

Tinubu’s 20 special advisers are set to earn about ₦1.13 billion over four years.

Blueprint

Tinubu’s media and communications team grew to 13 aides by November 2024, drawing waste criticism even as citizens were urged to endure hardship.

TheCable

The Federal Executive Council approved full implementation of the cost-cutting Oronsaye Report in February 2024 with a 12-week deadline, but six months later it was unimplemented while Tinubu created a new Livestock Ministry instead.

Channels; Daily Post

Each senator collects a running-cost package of about ₦21 million a month while the minimum wage is ₦70,000.

Guardian; Punch

At the start of the 10th National Assembly, lawmakers received Land Cruiser and Prado SUVs reported above ₦100 million each.

Premium Times

A Federal High Court declared the National Assembly’s roughly ₦110 billion vehicle-and-allowance scheme unlawful; lawmakers defended it as needed for “constituency runs” and ignored the ruling.

Premium Times

The National Assembly raised its own 2024 budget from ₦197 billion to ₦344 billion, and Tinubu signed it without objection.

Premium Times

Senator Abdul Ningi alleged the 2024 budget was padded by ₦3.7 trillion and was suspended from the Senate for saying so.

multipleAlleged

Premium Times verified that over ₦53 billion in 2024 budget projects had no stated location.

Premium Times

BudgIT found lawmakers inserted ₦6.9 trillion in projects into the 2025 budget, including ₦393 billion for streetlights and ₦114 billion for boreholes.

Premium Times; BudgIT

The Senate dismissed BudgIT’s findings as “the handiwork of dark angels of falsehood”.

BudgIT

Customs seized ₦653 million in undeclared foreign currency at Kano airport in July 2025, hidden in cartons of clothing, exposing the scale of illicit flows under weak oversight.

Customs

The 2025 budget was raised by the National Assembly far above the executive proposal, with billions in constituency projects inserted at the last minute.

BudgIT

The Auditor-General’s reports for 2021 and 2022 each documented trillions in unretired and unaccounted federal funds that no agency was held to account for.

ICIR; Premium Times

NAFDAC said the fake drugs it seized in 2025 “could ruin a nation,” having found diverted free HIV medicines and counterfeit contraceptives among them.

Nairametrics

The presidency expanded its roster of aides and advisers even as it told citizens to sacrifice, drawing repeated “waste of resources” criticism.

TheCable

Total public debt rose to ₦159.28 trillion ($110.97bn) by December 31, 2025 — up 10.1% in a year and about 380% since 2021.

DMO; Nairametrics; BudgIT

The Senate approved a fresh $6 billion external loan in under four hours on March 31, 2026, drawing Atiku’s charge of “a disturbing erosion of oversight”.

Vanguard

Tinubu said Nigeria would spend $11.6 billion servicing debt in 2026, nearly half of projected revenue, up from $5.21 billion on external debt in 2025.

Channels; TheCable

The government securitised ₦22.7 trillion in Ways and Means advances from the Central Bank in 2023, instantly inflating the debt.

Citypost

Debt service rose from ₦8.56 trillion in 2023 — overshooting its ₦6.56 trillion budget — to ₦12.63 trillion in 2024.

Citypost

The 2025 budget allocated ₦14.32 trillion to debt service, of which ₦9.8 trillion was spent in seven months.

Citypost

Analysts warned debt service could exceed ₦91 trillion by 2028, outpacing capital spending.

Citypost

Against ₦13.25 trillion in approved oil revenue, actual collections by November 2025 were just ₦7.60 trillion — a ₦5.65 trillion gap.

NUPRC

The National Assembly raised the 2026 budget to ₦68.30 trillion, 17% above Tinubu’s proposal, widening the deficit and fuelling more borrowing.

Finance in Africa

Three meals a day became a luxury under Tinubu, with many families openly skipping meals.

Vanguard

By 2025, over 93.7 million Nigerians were projected to live on at most $2 a day.

Statista

Nigeria recorded the world’s highest number of food-insecure people — 31.8 million in 2024 — after the subsidy removal and naira float.

UNICEF

The WFP warned in January 2026 that nearly 35 million Nigerians faced food insecurity, with six million children in the north malnourished.

WFP

The WFP shut 150 nutrition centres in the northeast in October 2025 as funding ran out.

Reuters; CNBC Africa

ActionAid reported 652 children died of malnutrition in Katsina in the first half of 2025.

ActionAid

The university dropout rate reached an estimated 22% in 2025, with 42% of students citing unaffordable fees.

reported analyses

The University of Nigeria, Nsukka proposed a 100% fee hike for 2025/2026, triggering weeks of protest before it was scaled back.

Punch; Legit.ng

Educating one child privately to a public university now costs ₦31.3 million, and ₦65.5 million for fully private schooling.

Cowrywise; TechCabal

Urban commuters paid an average of ₦1,195.75 per drop in 2026, up nearly 27% in a year.

NBS; Vanguard

A cloth vendor reported selling under ₦100,000 in half a year as patronage collapsed.

Vanguard

Traders began locking up shops for good because moving goods cost more than a day’s profit could earn.

Vanguard

Patients are discharged against medical advice because they cannot pay — one woman’s ₦112,000 bill exceeded her ₦80,000 salary.

BusinessDay

A woman named Aisha lost her baby because the family could not raise the deposit for a ₦320,000 caesarean.

Vanguard

A footwear seller in Kubwa saw his weekly water spend rise from ₦3,000 to over ₦7,000.

The Sun

A teacher and mother stopped making her children’s Friday noodles after a carton hit ₦18,000: “I cannot afford it, so they have to eat whatever is available”.

Vanguard

A nursing mother said the formula she relies on “keeps increasing drastically, and this affects my monthly budget”.

LightRay! Media

A Lagos keke rider said the subsidy removal “spoiled this keke work,” since fuel that once cost ₦1,000 to earn ₦5,000 now costs ₦3,000.

BusinessDay

A teacher in Abuja could not switch to boiling her water because “the price of gas has also increased”.

The Sun

An Abuja resident said that to get malaria medicine “you have to take half of your salary before you get drugs to treat yourself”.

Voice of America

A 66-year-old malaria patient lay sick in a single room in the Makoko slum, priced out of treatment as anti-malarials doubled.

Voice of America

A master baker reported 35–40% of bakeries had closed since 2023, surviving only because operators “cannot find any other thing to do”.

Nairametrics

A breadmakers’ association president said his own energy bill rose from ₦600,000–₦800,000 to “close to ₦3 million plus”.

Daily Trust

A woman returned to her grandmother’s herbal remedies because “Coartem is ₦5,000 now. I didn’t have ₦500 last week. How will I find ₦5,000?”.

Leadership

Procter & Gamble’s exit alone cost about 5,000 jobs; GlaxoSmithKline shed over 400 technical staff.

MAN data

A 32-year-old bank worker, Amarachi Ugochukwu, died by suicide in Lagos, leaving a note that cited hardship and that “nothing is working in my life”.

Vanguard

A 35-year-old man in Nasarawa, Hassan Bayaro, took his own life over debts of about ₦8 million.

Vanguard

Nigeria records an estimated 15,000 suicides a year, with one psychiatry professor noting the country now ranks sixth globally as hardship deepens.

Premium Times

At least 67 people, including 35 children, died in palliative and food-distribution stampedes in Ibadan, Abuja and Okija within one week in December 2024.

Punch; Al Jazeera

The Abuja stampede at a Maitama church on December 21, 2024 killed 10 people, including four children.

Al Jazeera

Adolescent girls in Ogun State were documented trading sex for food in response to hunger.

peer-reviewed study

In the conflict-hit northeast, poverty pushed women and girls into transactional sex for food, shelter and protection.

University of Birmingham research

Breadwinners now skip hospital visits to feed their families, turning to unregulated herbal remedies for serious illness.

Daily Trust

Severe child malnutrition spread as the World Food Programme warned six million children in the north were malnourished by early 2026.

WFP

A 19-year-old final-year student captured the national mood over a ₦50 snack now selling for ₦500: “how can I buy Gala of ₦50 for ₦500?”.

BusinessDay

Anti-malarial prices doubling pushed a sick 66-year-old in Makoko and countless others to default on treatment and rely on herbs.

Voice of America

Farida Auwalu survived the Mokwa flood as the only one left of a family of 16, having lost seven of her own children.

Al Jazeera

A Mokwa survivor told the BBC the disaster left him homeless and wiped out the profits of his cash business overnight.

BBC

More than half of those displaced by the Mokwa flood were children aged 12 and under, and survivors said no money or food reached them.

UN News

Health’s share of the federal budget fell from about 4.9% in 2023 toward 4.3% of the proposed 2026 budget, never approaching the 15% Abuja Declaration target.

Premium Times; The Guardian

The Health Minister told lawmakers only ₦36 million of the ₦218 billion appropriated for health capital projects in 2025 was actually released — a 0.016% release rate.

Premium Times

In 2024, ₦434.8 billion was allocated to health capital projects but only ₦65.4 billion (15%) was released.

Budget Office; Guardian

Maternal mortality was put at about 576 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2023, far from the SDG target of under 70.

CSJ 2025 budget review

The 2024 health survey found skilled birth attendance at just 46% and nearly a third of young children completely unvaccinated.

Federal Ministry of Health, 2024 NDHS

Lassa fever killed 215 people in 2025 from 1,148 confirmed cases — a fatality rate of 18.7%, higher than the year before.

NCDC

Nigeria carried Africa’s highest diphtheria burden, with 884 deaths from 8,587 confirmed cases between January and November 2025 amid vaccine shortages.

WHO; NCDC; Punch

Cholera cases rose 108% in 2024 over 2023, reaching 5,951 suspected cases and 176 deaths by mid-August.

NCDC

Only 21% of the 2024 vaccine budget was released — ₦29 billion of ₦137 billion — risking stockouts of measles, polio and diphtheria vaccines.

NPHCDA; allAfrica

Nigeria has about 2.2 million “zero-dose” children who have never received a routine vaccine, among the highest in the world.

NPHCDA; Guardian

Maternal mortality and the death of mothers in childbirth remain among the world’s worst, and a woman in parts of the north is up to ten times likelier to die in childbirth than her southern counterpart.

WHO; Vanguard

The NHIA raised capitation 93% and fee-for-service 378% in April 2025, pushing insurance premiums up by as much as 59%.

Nairametrics; NHIA

Health insurance still covered fewer than 10% of Nigerians, with out-of-pocket spending at 58–71% of health costs.

Commonwealth Fund; Peoples Gazette

GlaxoSmithKline left Nigeria in 2023 after 51 years and Sanofi followed in 2024, worsening drug shortages.

Devex

University College Hospital, Ibadan endured a blackout of over 100 days from October 2024 after the power company disconnected it over unpaid federal bills, with doctors treating patients by phone torchlight.

The Lancet; PUNCH Healthwise

Over ₦300 billion earmarked in the 2025 budget for hospital power had not been released, and UCH’s promised mini-grid was “not yet on the ground”.

PUNCH Healthwise

LUTH’s monthly Band A electricity bill ran between ₦69 million and ₦252 million while it received just ₦14 million in subvention; its head warned “no hospital will survive under Band A”.

Vanguard; TheCable

Resident doctors struck repeatedly into 2026 over unpaid allowances and the residency training fund.

Nigeria Info; Punch

Severe malaria admissions among under-fives rose 22% between January and March 2026, with only 19% of patients treated within 24 hours.

Leadership

Nigeria accounted for an estimated 184,800–195,000 malaria deaths in 2024 — 31% of the world’s total — as treatment slipped out of reach.

WHO; Leadership

A doctor warned during the 2026 malaria crisis that “a ₦5,000 drug becomes a ₦50,000 hospital bill — or a funeral”.

Leadership

Primary health centres collapsed, with 85% in distress and short of doctors, despite ₦55.44 billion disbursed between 2022 and early 2025.

Guardian; Daily Trust

The Basic Health Care Provision Fund repeatedly underperformed, leaving thousands of primary health centres without the funds promised to keep them open.

TheCable; Nigeria Health Watch

Donor cuts forced Nigeria to release ₦68 billion in 2025 to avert an imminent vaccine stockout, a crisis its own budget had failed to pre-empt.

Guardian

Cholera, Lassa fever and diphtheria together killed at least 1,738 people in 2025 amid vaccine shortages and a weak federal response.

Punch; NCDC

Twelve pharmaceutical and consumer-health multinationals exited or downsized within 18 months of the reforms, hollowing out local drug supply just as prices soared.

Business Hallmark

Nigeria carried the world’s largest share of malaria deaths even as the front-line drug tripled in price beyond the reach of the poor.

WHO; Leadership

Nigeria’s out-of-school population stood at 18.3 million in 2024, the largest in the world, with only 63% of primary-age children attending regularly.

UNICEF; Vanguard

UNICEF said the figure had risen toward 20 million by mid-2024 because of hardship, displacement and poor infrastructure, more than half of them girls.

UNESCO; allAfrica

An estimated 7.6 million girls are out of school, with insecurity forcing northern schools to suspend operations between November 2025 and 2026.

UNICEF; TheCable

The 2024 education budget of ₦1.54 trillion (6.39% of the total) fell below UNESCO’s 15–20% benchmark, with over 70% going to salaries and under 25% to capital.

Premium Times; allAfrica

JAMB admitted a server failure compromised the 2025 UTME results of 379,997 candidates.

TheCable; Premium Times

The JAMB registrar broke down in tears apologising: “I hold myself personally responsible”.

Legit.ng; ThisDay

Of 1.95 million who sat the 2025 UTME, 78.9% scored below 200 and only 0.24% scored 320 or above.

Guardian; ThisDay

ASUU said 84 of its members died between May and August 2024 amid hardship and unpaid salaries.

Channels

Tinubu released only four of about eight months of salaries withheld from lecturers during the 2022 strike, calling it the “last” such waiver.

NUC

ASUU declared a fresh strike in October 2025, still demanding withheld salaries, the unsigned 2009 agreement and ₦150 billion in revitalisation funds.

Vanguard

A Nigerian lecturer now earns about $300, down from $1,500 when the 2009 agreement was negotiated.

Leadership

The 2026 shift to a hybrid computer-based WASSCE added costs and access hurdles for students already paying ₦27,000 fees.

MasterWAEC; MySchoolGist

ICPC opened a probe into 51 institutions over alleged unauthorised deductions of ₦3,500–₦30,000 per student from student-loan disbursements.

ICPC; PunchAlleged

NANS alleged that of ₦100 billion released for the student-loan scheme only ₦28.8 billion reached students, a figure the agency disputed; the ICPC later retracted its ₦71.2 billion “diversion” claim as an error.

Channels; BusinessDayAlleged

The student-loan scheme later found ₦927.98 million in unpaid upkeep owed to 11,685 students.

Guardian; MSME Africa

Out-of-school numbers rose toward 20 million under the hardship, the largest such population in the world.

UNESCO; UNICEF

Repeated mass school abductions forced the federal government to shut 47 unity colleges, sacrificing the education of thousands to insecurity.

HRW; NPR

Tinubu’s government promised 5,500 CNG vehicles and 20,000 conversion kits, funded from ₦100 billion of the palliative budget, before the May 2024 anniversary.

Onanuga; Intel Region

Three years on, the Presidential CNG Initiative reported only 655 CNG buses, 5,123 tricycles and 40 electric buses, against a target of one million gas vehicles by 2027.

pci.gov.ng

The 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway was awarded to Gilbert Chagoury’s firm without competitive bidding, in apparent breach of the Public Procurement Act.

Punch; ICIR

The minister’s stated cost for the coastal highway rose from ₦4 billion a kilometre in April 2024 to ₦7.5 billion by October 2025, for a project estimated at about ₦15.6 trillion.

Sahara Reporters

The government secured a $747 million syndicated loan for the highway’s first phase in July 2025, despite the procurement violations.

ICIR

The coastal highway began with the demolition of the Landmark Beach resort and businesses worth an estimated $200 million.

ICIR

The “Renewed Hope” branding became a bitter irony as families skipped meals and children were sent home over unpaid fees.

Opinion Nigeria

The Renewed Hope cash transfer reached only 9.2 million of 15 million targeted households, paying at most ₦25,000 three times since 2023.

Leadership

The government unveiled a “National Values Charter” and a patriotism campaign in 2025 while citizens struggled to afford a single meal.

FIJ

The Federal Government conceded in 2025 that any food-price easing was due to “targeted market interventions,” an implicit admission of how severe the prior spikes had been.

FMAFS

The promised consumer-credit and one-million-jobs schemes produced little visible delivery as unemployment and prices climbed.

reporting

Renewed Hope housing estates were announced repeatedly while the housing deficit stayed at about 28 million units.

BusinessDay

The CNG transition promised hundreds of thousands of cheap-fuel vehicles but delivered a few hundred buses and a few thousand tricycles by 2026.

pci.gov.ng

Palliative rice and grain meant to cushion the subsidy shock instead drew deadly stampedes, with dozens crushed in a single December 2024 week.

Punch; Al Jazeera

About 4,193 doctors and dentists left Nigeria in 2024 alone, a 200% surge in health-worker migration.

Punch

More than 43,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and lab scientists migrated out between 2023 and 2024.

Punch

Nigeria has about 4 physicians per 10,000 people, against the WHO’s recommended minimum of 10.

Federal Ministry of Health

Twelve multinational pharmaceutical firms exited or downsized within the first 18 months of the reforms, hollowing out local drug supply.

Business Hallmark

Six in ten young Nigerians said they had considered emigrating, and the share who had thought about it “a lot” tripled since 2017 to 37%.

Afrobarometer, June 2025

Ninety-one percent of young Nigerians said the country was going in the wrong direction.

Afrobarometer

Nigeria ranks 172nd of 183 countries on the 2023 Global Youth Development Index, second-to-last for youth opportunity.

Commonwealth

African tech startup funding fell more than 50% from $2.4 billion in 2023 to $1.1 billion in 2024, and Nigerian startups Okra, Thepeer and Edukoya folded in 2024–2025.

Disrupt Africa; Techpoint Africa

After Nigeria’s 2024 crackdown forced Binance to halt naira services, traders who relied on peer-to-peer crypto for income and school fees were left stranded.

Punch

The CBN claimed $26 billion of untraceable flows passed through Binance, leading to the detention of two executives and warnings the ban would worsen youth unemployment.

Punch; VOA

Edukoya, an edtech that had raised one of Africa’s largest seed rounds, shut down in February 2025 amid the funding collapse.

Techpoint Africa

Health-worker migration surged 200% in 2024, draining the very system meant to keep Nigerians alive.

Punch

INEC failed to upload presidential results to its public portal in real time on election day, breaking a repeated promise.

multiple

The 2023 result was declared around 4 a.m. amid unresolved discrepancies and party protests at the collation centre.

multiple

Turnout in 2023 was just 26.72%, the lowest in Nigeria’s democratic history.

multiple

The Supreme Court ruled that INEC’s failure to transmit results electronically did not invalidate the election.

Channels; Vanguard

Since 2023, at least seven governors elected on the PDP platform defected to the ruling APC.

Vanguard

The APC controlled roughly 29 of 36 states by 2026 as the PDP shrank to two governors.

Vanguard

The African Democratic Congress accused Tinubu of deliberately steering Nigeria toward a one-party state.

multiple

On March 18, 2025, Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers and suspended the elected governor, deputy and entire House of Assembly for six months.

multiple

He installed a retired vice admiral to govern Rivers in place of the elected officials.

multiple

The Nigerian Bar Association and senior lawyers condemned the Rivers suspension as unconstitutional, since Section 305 does not authorise removing elected officials.

Business Hallmark

Peter Obi called the Rivers takeover “a constitutional breach that will hurt us for a long time”; Atiku called it “the dictatorship of the Tinubu administration”.

multiple

The National Assembly endorsed the Rivers emergency by a voice vote rather than the two-thirds majority critics said the Constitution required.

multiple

Tinubu suspended Governor Fubara while exonerating his rival, FCT Minister Wike, despite Wike’s role in the crisis.

multiple

The Supreme Court ruled in July 2024 that withholding local-government funds is unconstitutional and ordered direct payment to the 774 councils — and governors defied it.

Vanguard; Punch

The DSS sued former presidential candidate Pat Utomi in May 2025, calling his proposed “shadow government” a threat to constitutional order.

multiple

At a May 2025 summit, the APC adopted Tinubu as its sole 2027 candidate, pre-empting any internal contest.

Vanguard

APC structures began inaugurating local coordinators for Tinubu’s 2027 re-election as early as 2025, even as the crisis deepened.

Guardian

The Supreme Court postponed its hearing on the contested Kano emirship until 2027, leaving a throne federal agencies had helped destabilise unresolved for years.

Daily Trust

Federal police summoned and then retracted a summons to Emir Sanusi II, a move read as punishing him for criticising the administration.

The Africa ReportAlleged

The federal government confirmed in November 2024 that it had halted Rivers State’s October allocation, citing a court order obtained by the Wike-aligned Assembly faction.

Office of the Accountant-General; Pulse

The federal government withheld January and February 2025 local-government funds from reinstated Governor Fubara and released the ₦283.3 billion only to the sole administrator after the takeover.

Sahara Reporters

The federal government froze statutory allocations to Osun State’s 30 local governments from March 2025 amid an APC–PDP control dispute.

allAfrica

Governor Ademola Adeleke said in January 2026 that ₦130 billion of Osun’s council funds — money for teachers, nurses and health workers — was being “illegally withheld by the Federal Government”.

Premium Times; Tribune

The Supreme Court ruled in December 2025 that the federal seizure of Osun council funds was unconstitutional and “a grave breach of the Constitution”.

allAfrica

Tinubu told Rivers Governor Wike in May 2023 that the federal government “owes no obligation to make refunds” on federal roads built by states unless governors lobby him personally.

Vanguard

The Northern States Governors’ Forum formally rejected Tinubu’s tax bills in October 2024, warning the VAT model was “against the interests of the North and other sub-nationals”.

PM News

The 2025 Tax Act cut the federal VAT share from 15% to 10% and added a 30% derivation factor, pitting Lagos and Rivers against most of the federation.

PwC; EY

The Rivers-FIRS Supreme Court VAT case remained undecided into 2026, letting the federal government keep collecting VAT centrally five years on.

Daily Trust

The EFCC declared former Kogi Governor Yahaya Bello wanted in April 2024 over an alleged ₦80.2 billion, then was physically blocked from arresting him when his APC successor drove him away.

Punch; Channels

Armed security shielded Bello from the EFCC, exposing how federal agencies protected an APC ally from another federal agency.

PM News; TheCableAlleged

Former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai — after defecting to the opposition — was pursued at once by the EFCC, ICPC and DSS and detained over 30 days, in what allies called a “coordinated onslaught”.

Punch; TheCableAlleged

Former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami called his EFCC money-laundering probe a “politically motivated witch-hunt” tied to his defection to the opposition.

GuardianAlleged

Atiku Abubakar alleged that “once a person joins the APC, the harassment ceases and the charges against them magically disappear”.

Vanguard; allAfricaAlleged

The EFCC rejected claims it had been “weaponised against opposition figures,” insisting “corruption has no gender, religion, tribe or political party”.

Guardian

The September 2024 Edo governorship election was condemned by over 25 observers for “militarisation and use of impunity,” with two conflicting sets of result sheets.

Vanguard; BusinessdayAlleged

Yiaga Africa found voting did not take place in 12% of its sampled polling units during the November 2023 off-cycle elections, yet INEC uploaded results from some of them.

Premium TimesAlleged

The 2023 off-cycle polls were heavily militarised, with police alone mobilising 92,565 personnel plus helicopters and 15 gunboats across three states.

Guardian; The Eagle Online

Observers documented widespread vote-buying by both major parties in the 2024 Ondo and 2025 Anambra governorship elections, with monitors threatened and a phone seized in Anambra.

Yiaga; CJID; Premium Times

Armed police sealed the PDP national secretariat in November 2025 and teargassed members, unsealing it only for the Wike-backed faction after INEC recognised that group.

Premium Times

Police sealed an Abuja venue in May 2026 to block a rival PDP faction’s event after Wike threatened to revoke the land titles of owners hosting unrecognised factions.

Politics Nigeria

INEC’s handling of the Labour Party leadership dispute — derecognising one faction and excluding all LP candidates from August 2025 by-elections — was called a “deliberate effort to weaken opposition parties”.

ThisDay

An APC governor warned Peter Obi not to enter Edo State without “security clearance,” a threat Wike publicly backed.

Premium Times

Police killed at least 24 people during the #EndBadGovernance protests of August 2024, firing live rounds often at the head or torso.

Amnesty

Those killed in August 2024 included 20 young people, an older person and two children.

Amnesty

Over 1,200 people were detained after the protests and more than 146, including minors, were arraigned for treasonable felony.

multiple

Ten protesters were charged with treason, a capital offence.

HRW

Children aged 14 to 17 were held for 60 days; four malnourished minors collapsed in court during arraignment.

multiple

One protester said DSS operatives tortured him for over 60 days, beating him with sticks and iron cables.

Amnesty

No officer was prosecuted for the August 2024 killings a year later.

Amnesty

The US State Department’s 2024 report found Nigerian forces committed arbitrary killings and that impunity for torture by police, military and DSS persisted.

US State Department

The same report cited security forces sexually abusing displaced people, including children, around Maiduguri.

US State Department

The CPJ documented at least 56 journalists assaulted or harassed by security forces covering the August 2024 protests.

CPJ

Nigeria fell to 122nd of 180 countries on the 2025 RSF World Press Freedom Index.

RSF

Editor Segun Olatunji was abducted by Defence Intelligence operatives in March 2024, held incommunicado for two weeks, and said he was tortured over corruption reporting.

multiple

Investigative reporter Daniel Ojukwu was secretly arrested in May 2024 and held about ten days under the Cybercrimes Act over a corruption story.

CPJ; Premium Times

Human-rights lawyer Dele Farotimi was arrested in December 2024, driven over 300km, and charged under the Cybercrimes Act over his book on the judiciary before the charges were dropped.

TheCable

At least 29 journalists have faced prosecution under the Cybercrimes Act since 2015, with arrests continuing despite the 2024 amendment.

CPJ

The CPJ reported at least three journalists detained under the act since August 2025, including a publisher unable to meet ₦15 million bail.

CPJ

Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan was detained eight months in 2024 on money-laundering charges later dropped on health grounds, in what his lawyers called a wrongful detention used for leverage.

Fortune

The government charged activist Omoyele Sowore over his anti-Tinubu posts in September 2025 and remanded him in June 2026 for calling the President “a criminal”.

Sahara Reporters

Nigeria moved in April 2026 to ban personal political opinions on television and radio ahead of the 2027 vote, which rights groups warned would chill the press.

OkayAfrica

Amnesty documented 1,844 people killed in the southeast between January 2021 and June 2023 amid violence linked to IPOB and a heavy security response, and its “Decade of Impunity” report alleged unlawful killings, torture and disappearances there through December 2024.

Amnesty

Security operatives reportedly lay in wait to arrest a returning opposition figure at the airport without a warrant, which his party called proof “due process is optional” for opponents.

GuardianAlleged

In his May 2025 anniversary address, Tinubu declared “our economic reforms are working… no one is left behind,” as the World Bank counted 140 million Nigerians in poverty.

Punch

In his 2025 New Year speech, Tinubu told a hungry nation that “fuel prices have gradually decreased” and the outlook was “positive and encouraging”.

FIJ

On Independence Day 2025, Tinubu declared “the worst is over” as the IMF warned of worsening poverty.

Reuters; CNBC Africa

In June 2024, Tinubu told Nigerians “there is suffering in the land… but we must face our challenges,” drawing backlash for the comparison.

State House

Two days after a national hardship protest, Tinubu chided the unions, calling four strikes in nine months “unacceptable”.

Pulse

Tinubu’s year-end 2025 trip to Europe and Abu Dhabi was condemned as “insensitive” amid bombings and abductions at home.

BusinessDay

Forbes put Aliko Dangote at $23.9 billion in February 2025, up 78% in a year — a $10.5 billion gain — as ordinary Nigerians went hungry.

Forbes; BusinessDay

Former minister Bolaji Abdullahi said the Renewed Hope Agenda had become “a theatre of hardship and hopelessness”.

Daily Post

Vice President Shettima accused the oil union of holding the country to ransom and said of Dangote, “How we treat this gentleman will determine how outsiders will judge us,” siding with the billionaire over 800 sacked workers.

African Business

The 2025 budget allocated only about 5.2% to health, far below the 15% Abuja Declaration target, even as officials flew abroad for treatment.

Vanguard

A commentator captured the gap: “technocrats celebrate policy boldness but market women wail over their vacant stalls”.

TheCable

Tinubu marked his 74th birthday quietly in March 2026, but the quiet could not mask broken promises on electricity and hunger.

Opinion Nigeria

The government launched a patriotism and “national values” campaign in 2025, asking citizens to love the country while they struggled to feed it.

FIJ

Officials defended billions in foreign-currency travel spending and urged the President to travel even more, citing a $2 million livestock deal as justification.

Sahara Reporters; Channels

The Northern Elders Forum accused Tinubu of skewed federal appointments overwhelmingly favouring the South-West, in violation of the Constitution’s federal-character clause.

Tribune

Critics noted that in April 2025 Tinubu filled the heads of the CBN, NNPC, Police, Army, Customs, intelligence, EFCC and FIRS almost entirely with appointees from one ethnic bloc.

The Voice of AfricaAlleged

The presidency’s own defence of the appointments backfired when its spokesman published an error-riddled list and had to apologise.

Daily Trust

HURIWA accused Tinubu of nepotism over the back-to-back appointment of the CBN and FIRS heads, alleging “an unseemly pro-ethnic agenda”.

Daily TrustAlleged

Senator Ali Ndume warned that concentrating power in one ethnic group “could fracture national cohesion” and breached the federal-character principle.

ThisDay

The US redesignated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern in October 2025 over religious-freedom violations, with President Trump alleging genocide against Christians — a charge Nigeria’s government disputes.

Catholic World Report

Open Doors reported that of 4,849 Christians killed worldwide for their faith in its 2026 reporting period, 3,490 were Nigerian, up from 3,100 the year before — figures Nigeria’s government contests.

Open Doors

In December 2025, 27 Christians were abducted from a church and a village in Kogi, with one worshipper killed and three more dying in or after captivity.

Barnabas Aid

The NLC declared the ₦70,000 minimum wage “no longer realistic,” with President Joe Ajaero saying it “should challenge the conscience of any leader” since a bag of rice can cost more than a month’s pay.

Punch

As of 2026, about 20 states had still not fully implemented the ₦70,000 wage, especially for council workers and primary teachers.

Tribune; Pulse

The implementation of the new wage saw state personnel costs balloon about 90% to ₦3.8 trillion, largely through political appointments rather than worker welfare.

BudgIT; Punch

The Federal Workers Forum said in October 2025 the government still owed each worker ₦105,000 in wage-award arrears for May–July 2024, over 15 months overdue, calling it “a national embarrassment”.

Sahara Reporters

PenCom disclosed Tinubu approved ₦758 billion in 2025 to clear federal pension liabilities, a measure of how far arrears had piled up.

Punch

The Nigeria Union of Pensioners president said “many pensioners have died due to frustration” waiting for pay: “it is shameful Nigerians die because they can’t access pensions”.

Punch

The NLC and TUC raised the alarm over insecurity at the June 2025 International Labour Conference, citing worsening terrorism, banditry and kidnapping.

Legit.ng

The June 2024 NLC/TUC strike shut offices, banks and airports nationwide over the minimum wage and electricity price hikes after talks deadlocked.

allAfrica

The Correctional Service sought legislative approval to clear ₦30.38 billion in promotion arrears owed to its own officers from 2019 to 2024.

Punch

Federal retirees and university pensioners reported arrears stretching to dozens of months, with some dying before payment.

Punch; The Sun

As of February 2026, awaiting-trial inmates made up 64% of Nigeria’s 80,812 prisoners — 51,955 people locked up without conviction.

Premium Times

Lagos correctional centres held 9,209 inmates in facilities built for 4,167, an overcrowding ratio of 221%.

Vanguard

In 2024, 94,614 of 176,536 prison admissions were remand or awaiting-trial cases, while bribery and corruption accounted for just 27 admissions.

Leadership

The contrast of 27 corruption admissions against routine billion-naira looting allegations exposed a justice system that punishes poverty and powerlessness.

Leadership

The Correctional Service disclosed in August 2025 that 8,246 inmates nationwide were suffering from mental illness in custody.

Nairametrics

Police were accused of demanding a ₦300,000 bribe to release a young mother and her eight-month-old baby illegally detained since March 2025.

Sahara ReportersAlleged

Prison capacity expanded from about 53,752 in 2017 to 65,035 by 2025, yet inmate growth outpaced it, so authorities built cells faster than ever and still fell behind.

Leadership

An activist described federal detention centres as hubs of extortion where access to basic rights “depends largely on money”.

Prison InsiderAlleged

The Alau Dam burst on September 10, 2024, flooding two-thirds of Maiduguri, killing 30, displacing 414,000 and freeing over 200 inmates from a flood-damaged prison in the city’s worst flood in 30 years.

AFP; Al Jazeera

The 2024 rainy season killed at least 229 people nationwide and displaced more than 380,000, damaging over 107,600 hectares of farmland.

NEMA; France 24

The Maiduguri floods damaged 40% of healthcare facilities offering nutrition services and triggered cholera, against a humanitarian plan funded at barely half its need.

OCHA; UNICEF

The Mokwa flood of May 28, 2025 killed at least 500 people, with over 600 missing, as the Mokwa bridge collapsed.

Wikipedia; Al Jazeera

Farida Auwalu, the lone survivor from a family of 16, lost seven children in the Mokwa deluge.

Al Jazeera

The Mokwa disaster destroyed 45 schools, 44 health centres and over 10,000 hectares of paddy fields, and NEMA said it had issued early warnings that went unheeded.

Wikipedia; Copernicus

The 2025 floods killed 241 people, displaced 144,790 and affected 433,578 across 27 states, destroying 52,509 houses and 74,767 hectares of farmland.

Punch

Children made up 197,566 of the people affected by the 2025 floods, the largest group hit.

Punch

Gas flaring cost Nigeria over ₦710 billion in just four months of 2025, with penalties largely uncollected.

NOSDRA; Business Post

A June 2023 Shell pipeline spill in Ogoniland fouled farmland and the Okulu River, with the regulator admitting a delayed response.

Al Jazeera; AP

UNEP found HYPREP “is not designed, nor structured” to handle the Ogoniland cleanup, and one activist said “no credible cleanup is ongoing”.

UNEP; HumAngle

The government pushed to resume oil drilling in Ogoniland before the decades-old pollution was cleaned up.

Context; HOMEF

The Chiromawa bridge crash on the Kano-Zaria expressway on May 31, 2025 killed at least 22 Kano athletes returning from a national festival; families were offered ₦1 million each.

Al Jazeera; AP

Nigeria’s housing deficit stood at about 28 million units, needing roughly ₦21 trillion to close, with fewer than 100,000 units built a year against an estimated 700,000 needed.

Punch; BusinessDay

Federal demolitions for the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, including over 2,000 houses in one Lagos community, deepened the housing crisis amid compensation disputes.

Punch

The Eastern rail line from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, scheduled for completion in 2024, remained unfinished.

NRC

July 2025 flash flooding in Yola, Adamawa killed 25 people and destroyed fish farms and smallholder crops.

TheCable

NiMet warned of severe heat stress across Kano and 17 northern states in 2025, with temperatures near 40°C deepening water and food crises.

TheCable

Nigeria recorded at least 589 oil spills in 2024, with regulators admitting slow responses that left farmland and rivers poisoned.

Nairametrics; NOSDRA

As ECOWAS chairman, Tinubu gave Niger’s coup leaders a one-week ultimatum in July 2023 to restore the deposed president or face intervention; the deadline passed with nothing.

multiple

The Nigerian Senate rejected Tinubu’s request to authorise military intervention in Niger, urging caution.

multiple

ECOWAS’s threatened intervention never came, and analysts said the bloc broke “the first rule of diplomatic engagement” by bluffing.

multiple

ECOWAS sanctions on Niger backfired, crippling cross-border trade and harming civilians on both sides of the border.

Crisis Group

Nigeria cut electricity to Niger on Tinubu’s directive, causing rolling blackouts.

BBC

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formally withdrew from ECOWAS in January 2025, during Tinubu’s chairmanship, calling the exit “irreversible”.

PBS; AP; Punch

The United States placed Nigeria on a partial visa-restriction list from January 1, 2026, suspending most visitor and student visas.

US State Department

The Trump administration justified the restriction by claiming terrorist groups “operate freely in certain parts of Nigeria,” a diplomatic rebuke to Tinubu’s government.

White House

Nigeria, which received about 128,000 US visas a year over the prior decade, became the country most heavily hit by the new restrictions.

American Immigration Council

Indian investors pledged over $14 billion in 2023, but by Modi’s November 2024 visit the two governments could only “commit to facilitating” the unrealised remainder.

Reuters; BusinessDay

The Sahel states’ exit gutted ECOWAS under Tinubu’s chairmanship, the bloc’s biggest rupture in its history.

PBS; AP

The US student-visa overstay data used to justify the 2026 restrictions was called “deeply flawed” by immigration scholars, yet the restriction stood.

Higher Ed Dive

The National Assembly rejected a bill to reserve seats for women, and the reintroduced version stalled.

TheCable; PLAC

Women hold under 5% of National Assembly seats, among the lowest rates in the world.

IDS; PLAC

The 2025 Plateau attacks included documented sexual violence, among them the four-day gang-rape of a 19-year-old in Riyom.

CSI

Out-of-school numbers and child marriage rose under the hardship, with rates near 50% in the northeast and northwest, and a girl with no schooling marries at a median age of 16.6 against 21.7 for one who finishes secondary school.

DHS 2024; UNICEF

Children as young as ten were among the 303 abducted from St. Mary’s, some returning malnourished or in shock.

PBS

The official youth unemployment figure of 6.5% for 2024 follows a methodology change; the comparable 2020 figure under the old method was 53.4%.

Afrobarometer

D’Tigress reached the first-ever Olympic basketball quarter-final by an African side at Paris 2024, then accused the sports ministry of failing to pay promised allowances.

Premium Times

Nigeria spent ₦12 billion on its Paris 2024 Olympic campaign yet won no medals, and the women’s basketball team was turned away from the opening ceremony for lack of boat space.

BusinessDay; Swish Appeal

At AFCON 2025, Super Eagles players threatened to boycott their quarter-final over unpaid bonuses, with each owed $42,500, and the captain pledged to pay teammates from his own pocket.

Leadership; ESPN

The October 2024 scrapping of the Ministry of Sports Development came amid chronic underfunding that left athletes unpaid.

BusinessDay

Women hold only about 9.8% of local-government seats, and 15 states have no female state legislators at all.

TheCable; IDS

More than half of young Nigerians named jobs as their top priority, yet under a quarter said the government was performing even “fairly well” on the economy.

Afrobarometer

Atiku Abubakar accused the APC of running the Humanitarian Ministry as “a cash cow,” a charge underscored by serial scandals in poverty funds.

Punch

Peter Obi said Tinubu’s spending priorities “have not matched the scale of the country’s humanitarian and economic challenges”.

Reuters; CNBC Africa

Benue pensioners marched with placards reading “pensioners are dying, pay us our entitlements,” a scene of federal-and-state neglect repeated across the country.

The Sun

Two years in, Nigerians across regions concluded they were hungrier and poorer than under any previous government.

Vanguard

The Dangote–PENGASSAN crisis showed how dependent the country had become on a single private refinery: “when it sneezes the whole economy catches a cold”.

African Business

Tinubu sacked Finance Minister Wale Edun and Housing Minister Ahmed Dangiwa in an April 2026 reshuffle, signalling instability in his economic team three years in.

Punch; ThisDay

Innovation Minister Geoffrey Nnaji resigned in October 2025 over certificate-forgery allegations, claiming he was a target of blackmail.

State HouseAlleged

The 2024 #EndBadGovernance protests over hunger were met with force, and organisers declared a renewed day of protest for June 2025 as conditions failed to improve.

Socialist World

The NLC said it could not even see the contents of the 2026 tax laws imposed on workers, the largest tax-paying group.

Punch

A petroleum regulator resigned in 2025 after Dangote levelled corruption allegations against the agency.

Guardian; VanguardAlleged

Across 2025, the flood toll, a record near-35-million hunger projection, the largest school kidnapping in history and tens of thousands jailed without trial formed a single indictment of compounding catastrophe.

Punch; WFP; AP; Vanguard

Tinubu cancelled his G20 trip in November 2025 only after back-to-back school abductions and a church attack made absence at home untenable.

France 24

The 2026 budget was inflated 17% above the executive proposal, widening a deficit already driven by record borrowing.

Finance in Africa

Three years in, the verdict of markets, unions, pensioners, students and the displaced converged on a single conclusion: ordinary life had stopped working for ordinary people.