Keypoints:
- Tinubu faces verdict on painful reforms
- Living costs remain central voter concern
- Divided opposition gives APC an opening
CAMPAIGNING for Nigeria’s January 2027 presidential election opened on Wednesday with President Bola Tinubu seeking a second term as persistent household hardship, insecurity and a fractured opposition turn Africa’s most populous country into a defining test of his economic reforms.
The contest is likely to hinge on whether voters credit Tinubu for improving macroeconomic stability or punish him for the painful adjustment that followed subsidy removal and currency reforms. Headline inflation has fallen, but food costs, poverty and insecurity continue to shape everyday perceptions of his presidency.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has fixed presidential and National Assembly elections for January 16, 2027, with governorship and state assembly polls following on February 6.
Economic pain becomes battleground
Tinubu entered office in May 2023 promising to overhaul an economy burdened by expensive subsidies, foreign exchange distortions, weak public finances and sluggish investment.
His administration quickly scrapped the long-standing petrol subsidy and loosened controls over the naira, measures welcomed by investors and international financial institutions but followed by steep increases in transport, food and energy costs.
The president has repeatedly argued that the difficult changes were necessary to prevent deeper economic instability. Africa Briefing has previously examined Tinubu’s case that Nigeria is moving towards economic recovery as reforms strengthen government finances and investor confidence.
Tinubu’s campaign now faces a fundamental political question: whether Nigerians believe they are better off after nearly 12 years of rule by the All Progressives Congress, first under Muhammadu Buhari and since 2023 under Tinubu.
That is likely to prove harder to answer at household level than in economic data.
Inflation falls, hardship lingers
Official figures show headline inflation slowed to 15.43 percent in July, from 15.91 percent in June, extending the easing seen under Nigeria’s rebased consumer price index.
Food inflation, however, stood at 20.31 percent, keeping considerable pressure on household budgets, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, author of Nigerian politics newsletter The Bellwether, told AFP that the economy remained the issue cutting across virtually every part of the country because of its effect on both security and development.
The deeper political problem for Tinubu is that falling inflation does not mean prices are falling. It means they are rising more slowly after years of sharp increases.
The World Bank estimates that an additional seven million Nigerians fell into poverty in 2025, pushing the proportion living below the national poverty line to about 63 percent, from an estimated 61 percent in 2024.
That gap between improving economic indicators and strained household finances could become the central fault line of the campaign.
Security remains Tinubu’s other test
Economic anxiety is unfolding alongside persistent insecurity.
Nigeria continues to confront jihadist insurgencies in the north-east, armed banditry and mass kidnapping across parts of the north-west and north-central regions, farmer-herder violence and separatist tensions in the south-east.
Ladd Serwat, senior Africa analyst at conflict monitor ACLED, told AFP that violence had intensified since 2024, driven partly by expanding armed banditry across northern and central Nigeria and renewed fighting in Borno State.
The security debate has also taken on a regional dimension, with Tinubu linking instability inside Nigeria to wider upheaval across the Sahel — an argument that has already generated pushback from Sahel governments.
For voters, however, security is often measured less through regional strategy than through whether roads are safe, farms remain accessible and families can travel without fear of kidnapping.
Opposition split hands Tinubu an opening
Tinubu’s greatest political advantage may be the failure of his opponents to unite.
The Associated Press reports that the president faces 18 opposition candidates, although analysts expect the race to centre principally on Tinubu, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra State governor Peter Obi.
Attempts to build a single anti-Tinubu coalition unravelled earlier this year. Obi eventually secured the Nigeria Democratic Congress presidential nomination, while Atiku won the African Democratic Congress ticket.
Obi later named former Kano State governor Rabiu Kwankwaso as his running mate.
The breakdown followed months of deepening opposition fractures over leadership, party structures and competing presidential ambitions.
Atiku is now mounting his seventh presidential bid, an effort Africa Briefing has tracked as Nigeria’s opposition searches for a route past Tinubu.
Tinubu, meanwhile, enjoys the advantages of incumbency and an increasingly dominant APC organisation. AP reports that 31 of Nigeria’s 36 state governors now belong to the ruling party following a wave of defections.
Shadow of 2023 hangs over race
The numbers from the last presidential election explain why opposition fragmentation matters.
Tinubu won in 2023 with 36.6 percent of the vote, compared with 29 percent for Atiku and 25 percent for Obi. Kwankwaso secured about six percent. Turnout was only around 27 percent, according to AFP figures carried by Channels Television.
That means the 2027 battle will not simply be about persuading Nigerians to switch candidates. Mobilising disillusioned voters could prove equally important.
For Tinubu, the campaign is a referendum on whether economic pain will eventually be seen as the price of necessary reform.
For Atiku and Obi, the challenge is different: converting dissatisfaction into votes while competing against each other for many of the Nigerians demanding change.
Five months from election day, Nigeria’s campaign has therefore opened around a deceptively simple question: have Tinubu’s reforms begun improving people’s lives quickly enough for voters to give him four more years?
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