Femi Akintunde-Johnson
It is the end of the month, and a couple sits at the dining table with a calculator, a list of expenses and the kind of silence that no motivational speaker can dispel. School fees are due. The landlord has remembered them. Electricity must be paid for, the car needs attention, food prices have developed another personality, and somebody in the extended family has an emergency that cannot wait until payday. Their salaries have arrived, but the money seems to have arrived without the purchasing power that used to accompany it. They are educated, employed, reasonably housed and responsible. Yet they are discovering that a life they once considered ordinary now requires the financial planning of a small corporation.
Welcome to the Nigerian middle class, that increasingly anxious population learning to look comfortable while negotiating with its bank balance. The car may still be parked outside, the children may still attend a respectable school, and the professional title may command some respect at social gatherings. But behind the appearances, savings are thinning, holidays have become memories, medical appointments are postponed, and replacing a household appliance can require the sort of consultation usually reserved for constitutional amendments. The problem is no longer simply the inability to afford luxury. It is the growing difficulty of maintaining what used to constitute a modest, respectable life.
The middle class is not a precisely defined economic category, nor has it disappeared altogether. It includes salaried workers, professionals, entrepreneurs and small-business owners whose circumstances differ considerably. What is disappearing, for many, is economic security: the ability to save, absorb emergencies, educate children, maintain a home and reasonably expect tomorrow to be better than today. A person may remain employed and technically above the poverty line while becoming progressively less able to afford the life that employment was supposed to make possible.
The pressures are familiar. Food, transport, housing, electricity, healthcare and education compete relentlessly for household income. Parents who once planned for their children’s future now calculate which expense can be deferred without lasting damage. Young professionals hoping to leave their parents’ homes discover that rent and basic living costs can swallow a frightening proportion of their earnings. Small-business owners work longer hours without necessarily improving their circumstances. Some households are not earning less in nominal terms; they are simply buying considerably less with what they earn.
Nigeria’s economic reforms must be considered against this reality. The removal of the petrol subsidy and changes to the foreign-exchange regime were defended as necessary measures to correct longstanding distortions, improve public finances and establish a more sustainable economic foundation. Supporters can point to improvements in selected macroeconomic indicators; critics can highlight the immediate hardship and uneven distribution of the costs. Both the stated objectives of reform and its consequences for households deserve scrutiny. An economy may become more stable by certain measures while families continue to struggle to feed themselves, pay rent and meet school fees.
The question is not whether every reform must produce instant comfort, or whether government can simply decree lower prices. It is whether the design, sequencing and implementation of policy adequately recognise the people expected to endure its consequences. Were vulnerable households sufficiently protected? Did wages and social support keep pace with the adjustments? Were electricity, transport, housing and domestic production addressed with enough urgency to reduce the cost of living? And when government celebrates improved revenue or economic growth, how quickly can the ordinary household expect to feel the difference?
These questions matter because the middle class is not merely a collection of people who can afford air conditioners and occasional restaurant meals. Its members pay taxes, employ people, patronise businesses, invest in homes and educate the next generation. When their purchasing power weakens, the consequences travel beyond the dining table. The shopkeeper loses customers, the small manufacturer struggles to sell, and the ambitious graduate begins to wonder whether professional advancement remains a reliable route to a better life.
This is not an argument that the middle class deserves more sympathy than millions of Nigerians who have endured poverty and insecurity for years. Their hardships are often more immediate and devastating. The point is that a society needs pathways out of poverty, but it also needs pathways that prevent those who have made progress from sliding backwards. A country should be concerned when people who work, produce, pay taxes and invest in their children’s future find it increasingly difficult to remain economically secure.
The approaching 2027 elections therefore offer an opportunity to ask harder questions than the usual campaign-season exchange of accusations and promises. The incumbent administration can defend its reform agenda and point to improvements in selected indicators; its opponents can question the human cost, pace and distribution of the benefits. But neither declarations of success nor expressions of outrage are substitutes for credible programmes. Nigerians deserve to know what those seeking their votes propose to do about wages, food production, affordable housing, electricity, transport, healthcare, education and the conditions that allow businesses to survive and create jobs.
Politicians should also be pressed for measurable commitments. How will employment translate into a living income? How will economic growth improve household purchasing power? What practical support will help small businesses expand? How will social protection reach those who need it without becoming another avenue for waste or political patronage? And what will citizens be able to hold elected officials accountable for if the promises are not fulfilled? These are less glamorous questions than defections, rallies and carefully choreographed declarations of political affection. They are, however, considerably more relevant to the family trying to make its income last until the end of the month.
Ultimately, the disappearing middle class is about more than money. It is about confidence: the belief that work should lead somewhere, education should widen opportunity, responsible choices should offer some protection against uncertainty, and families should be able to make plans without constantly revising them downwards. When that confidence weakens, the damage appears in abandoned ambitions, delayed independence, anxious households and young people who increasingly imagine their future elsewhere.
As 2027 approaches, Nigerians should listen carefully to those seeking their mandate, particularly for the substance beneath the promises. A thriving middle class does not prove that every citizen is prosperous, just as a struggling middle class does not tell the whole story of national hardship. But its condition offers one indication of whether economic opportunity is translating into durable security for people prepared to work and contribute.
For the couple at the dining table, prosperity is not a figure announced at a press conference. It is the ability to pay the bills, save a little, meet an emergency and still believe that next year might be better. In a country so richly endowed with human and material resources, that should not be an extravagant ambition.