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Cost of Living and the 2027 Presidential Poll
Postscript by Waziri Adio
Without a doubt, the sustained and steep rise in the cost of living in the last three years will dominate the campaigns for the presidency in 2027. This puts the incumbent on the backfoot, and is a gift to the opposition. But dominating the campaigns and deciding the elections can be two different things. While the opposition will pine for an automatic link, the incumbent will strive for the opposite. This will be an interesting rhetorical and political battle to watch between now and 16th January 2027.
With the undeniable surge in the price of basic things like food, medication, transportation, rent and energy since President Bola Tinubu came on board on 29th May 2023, it would have been a real surprise for the cost of living not to be a major campaign issue in the 2027 presidential election. The impact of high prices on the living standards of poor and low-income households, who are in the majority, has been devastating. The reason is simple. Those in the low-income bracket spend a disproportionate portion of their incomes on food, transportation and rent; the country lacks adequate safety nets; and the government has not done enough to provide proper reliefs to the disadvantaged. The equally devasting impact of high input prices on small businesses makes it a multiple whammy for the poor.
There are many drivers of high prices, including unexpected external shocks like the closure of the Strait of Hormuz arising from the war waged on Iran by the US and Israel. It is also true that elevated prices predated Tinubu. The lingering effects of the disruptions of global supply chains from the COVID-19 pandemic, the War in Ukraine and internal issues like border closure and insecurity kept prices high for a long time. By May 2023, headline inflation was already 22.41% while food inflation stood at 24.82%. But prices went through the roof when the Tinubu administration removed petrol subsidy and floated the Naira. By December 2024, headline inflation had jumped to 34.8% while food inflation slightly moderated to 39.84%. There is an undeniable link between Tinubu’s twin signature reforms and the surge in prices.
The rate at which prices rise has started moderating, but the current prices of essentials like food, medication and transportation are sometimes three or four times what they were in the first half of 2023. Almost all Nigerians can remember how much cheaper things were just less than four years ago and very few Nigerians have a memory or the experience of the last time when things were this hard. It will be naïve for the incumbent administration not to expect that the opposition will mine this reality to death.
To be sure, the reforms introduced by Tinubu were necessary because Nigeria was racing towards a crash. The issue was not about subsidy per se but about what the finances of the country could carry at the time and the most efficient way to allocate increasingly scarce public resources. A country spending more than 95% of its federal revenue on debt service and splurging $10 billion of the money it did not have on just petrol subsidy in a year (as we did in 2022) was in grave financial ill-health and in need of drastic actions. Similarly, a country running multiple exchange rates and sexing up its external reserves needed to quit living dangerously before it tipped over the abyss.
So, undertaking the reforms was not even a choice for Tinubu. It is the sensible thing to do, to avert a bigger and more devastating crisis, akin to the need to undertake a needed surgery to avert a potentially fatal ailment that was yet to manifest. Some people (myself inclusive) took issues with the sequencing of the Tinubu reforms (or the sequencing of the life-saving surgery, if you will) and the lack of adequate plan to mitigate the adverse effects on the poor (or failure to adequately prepare the patient to cope with the pains of and recover from the life-saving surgery).
Despite these valid objections, the Tinubu reforms have produced some early gains, mostly at the macro level. According to the CBN, external reserves as at 3rd September 2026 was $54.08 billion, the highest since December 2008. The economy is growing at a reasonable rate, with the GDP growing by 4.43% in the second quarter of 2026. Due to a combination of tax reforms, devaluation and subsidy removal, government revenue has soared. Gross FAAC revenue rose from N12.36 trillion in 2022 to N35.81 trillion in 2025, an increase of 189%.
This has increased the fiscal headspace for all tiers of government, and has improved their capacity to shoulder extra responsibilities from minimum wage adjustment and spend more on infrastructure without the need to resort to borrowing. In fact, most states are paying down their debts, with only just one or two taking on new debts. Inflation rate is more moderate, with headline inflation at 15.43% and food inflation at 20.31% in July 2026, according to the NBS. Other positive indicators include the consistent rise in trade surplus, the boom in the stock market, the rise in investment flows, the increase in the profitability of major companies, and the rosy endorsements by credit rating agencies.
But many Nigerians still consider all these as paper growth. It is hard to blame them. These gains are mostly upstream and do not touch most of our citizens directly or do not mitigate the unremitting pains from high prices. Yes, some Nigerians have made a killing from the stock market and other investments. But you can only make money from investments when your disposable income covers your basic needs. Most of our people are still struggling to feed themselves and their families. The mega profits declared by some companies are mostly captured by their owners and shareholders who constitute just a fraction of our population.
The doubling of minimum wage is commendable but only about 7% of our labour force work in the formal sector, according to the NBS. In the informal sector, the option can be as stark as choosing between becoming jobless or earning degraded wages that can barely cover basic needs. Prices are still rising (including for food, after a short respite). It is the rate of increase in prices that has slowed down. GDP growth and the rise in external reserves are a major win for the economy, but they do not make much difference to the average citizens as they cannot use GDP or external reserves to pay for their groceries, bus fares or rents. So, when people say they cannot eat GDP or external reserves, they are not being flippant. They are speaking of, and more concerned about, what is going on in their personal lives. The unfinished job of the reforms is to sustain macro gains and substantially ease micro pains.
Those trying to displace President Tinubu in January did not create or invent the cos- of-living crisis and it will be absolutely unimaginable for them not exploit it to their advantage. The talk and the interest in restoring petrol subsidy and other subsidies are ways of talking about what remains a sticky pain point for most Nigerians: high prices. More variants of the cost-of-living narrative should be expected as we move closer to the presidential poll. By the way, this is not peculiar to Nigeria: high cost of living is now a major campaign issue that is putting incumbents under pressure all over the world.
But does this mean that the candidacy of Tinubu is doomed and that either of his two main challengers (Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi) is home and dry? Not necessarily. The cost-of-living crisis is definitely a major blow to the incumbent as most voters just need a few rhetorical prompts to remember the sharp decline in their standards of living within a very short period of time. However, this may not be a fatal blow. The victory lap in some opposition camp may thus be premature. To start with, this is another long electoral cycle. We still have four full months left before the presidential poll. A day, the saw goes, is a long time in politics, especially in electoral politics.
Many factors shape electoral outcomes. Having a compelling message that resonates with voters across the many divides of the country can be a major factor in some electoral cycles. But it is just one of the sometimes-conflicting factors shaping electoral outcomes. A compelling message by itself does not provide absolute guarantee of success or failure nor is it the lone determinant of how voters decide. The eventual electoral value of the cost-of-living crisis will be a function of where the majority of Nigerian voters are at this point in time. Added to this might be the voters’ perception of the soundness of the policy alternatives being proposed and the credibility and intention of those proposing them.
If the majority of the voters are completely tired and ready to vote for anyone but the incumbent, then the coronation dance in some opposition quarters may well be justified. We have been in such positions before, especially in 2015. Time will tell whether 2027 is another such moment. But if a sizeable segment of the voters is open to giving the incumbent the benefit of the doubt despite the hard times, then critical evaluations of what the challengers are proposing and the challengers themselves should be expected. When most voters are not determined to vote anyone but the incumbent, it will not be enough for the opposition candidates to just be dishing out promises without providing the details and showing how their prescriptions will not make things worse. If this is the case, the message has not stopped been compelling but it may not translate to expected electoral gains.
Beyond messaging, other critical factors determine the outcome of our presidential elections. One of these other factors is money. It is a vast country and it costs tons of money to campaign around the country, to support foot soldiers to woo and mobilise voters in the 36 states, 774 LGAs and the 8,809 wards of the country, and to fund agents in almost 180, 000 polling units on election day. So, whoever has, or can mobilise, the largest war chest has a headstart.
The dual requirements of the need for a candidate to score the highest number of valid votes and secure 25% of the votes in at least 24 states makes winning the presidency a huge and complex undertaking. Cultic following and localised support might not be enough to get a candidate the desired prize, as President Muhammadu Buhari’s first three attempts at the presidency amply illustrated. These dual requirements give an edge to whoever can put together the most robust and most geographically-spread ground game either by relying on or joining up with existing electoral machines or cobbling together a coalition of parties or movements that can realistically deliver both requirements.
The party of the incumbent president has governors in 31 of the 36 states, which does not mean that the ruling party will win the presidential election or even secure 25% in all the states it controls. But the influence of governors on elections in their state cannot be casually waved off. The two leading opposition parties, which do not have a single sitting governor between them, contend that governors would not have a role in this election. They may be right. It may be mere consolation. One of these leading opposition parties is a coalition of two recent organic movements while the other is a coalition of political heavyweights who mostly hold no current offices. So, all the three leading parties are attempting to build winning coalitions though in different ways. The battle of the coalitions will be another interesting one to watch.
Incumbency, or the advantage that comes with the control of state institutions and resources, is also expected to play a part (though the 2015 election showed us that an incumbent can be defeated). The gentlemanly agreement on rotation of power between the north and the south, a reality which informed the effusive pledges by some of the aspirants and candidates in this cycle to do only one term if elected, is also likely to feature high in how the election goes. The role of ethnic and religious sentiments, likely to be mobilised openly and secretly, can also not be dismissed. And not the least, the extent to which the opposition is united or fragmented will be a key factor in the contest against a politically savvy incumbent.
Campaigning around high cost of living clearly offers a path. Because of its potentially unifying force, it may compensate for handicaps in other areas. Beyond its projected prominence in the campaigns, it may play a major or just a marginal role in the eventual outcome of the presidential poll. We won’t know until all the votes are cast and counted.
