#	Item	Without Tinubu’s Policies	With Tinubu’s Policies	Multiplier
1	Petrol (per litre)	₦4,000–6,000 (black market — pumps empty)	₦1,350–1,500	4–5x
2	Diesel (per litre)	₦5,500–9,000 (black market)	₦1,700–2,000	3–5x
3	Cooking gas — 12.5kg	₦38,000–55,000	₦14,000–18,000	2.5–3x
↑ Energy — the foundation of every price below
4	Bus/keke fare — short trip	₦1,500–2,500	₦400–700	3–5x
5	Private car — full tank (40L)	₦160,000–240,000	₦54,000–60,000	3.5–5x
6	Ride-hail Lagos, 10km	₦12,000–25,000	₦3,500–6,000	3–4x
↑ Transport — every item below moves by road
7	50kg bag of rice	₦180,000–250,000	₦80,000–110,000	2–2.5x
8	Beans (per kg)	₦4,500–7,000	₦1,200–1,800	3–4x
9	Basket of tomatoes	₦80,000–120,000	₦35,000–45,000	3x
10	Vegetable oil — 5 litres	₦45,000–70,000	₦18,000–22,000	3x
11	Bread — large loaf	₦3,500–5,500	₦1,500–2,000	3x
12	Eggs — crate of 30	₦9,000–14,000	₦5,000–6,000	2.5–3x
13	Chicken — 1kg frozen	₦12,000–20,000	₦6,500–8,000	2.5–3x
↑ Food — all prices downstream of fuel and transport
14	Generator diesel — monthly (3-bed home, 6hrs/day)	₦800,000–3,000,000	₦180,000–320,000	5–6x
15	US dollar — bank purchase	₦3,500–4,500 (black market only)	₦1,380–1,450	3x
16	Private school fees — per term	₦6,000,000–12,000,000	₦2,000,000–4,000,000	3x
17	Flight — Lagos to Abuja	₦450,000–800,000	₦120,000–200,000	4x
18	Bottled water — 1 crate (75cl)	₦8,000–13,000	₦2,500–4,000	3x
19	Cement — 50kg bag	₦16,000–18,000	₦11,000–12,000	1.5x
20	Imported smartphone — mid-tier	₦750,000–1,200,000	₦250,000–450,000	3x

The “Without Tinubu’s Policies” prices are calculated from Brent crude at $120 per barrel — the highest verified price recorded this year — an estimated black market exchange rate of ₦3,500–4,500 per dollar, historical black market premiums during the 2022 fuel scarcity, and verified Nigerian market data. They are estimates, but they are grounded estimates. The direction and scale are not in dispute.

Key fiscal indicators — counterfactual versus actual

II.   Exchange Rate Dynamics –  Modelling the Counterfactual

In mid-2022, with net reserves of approximately $8 billion and a subsidy bill running at N448 billion per month, the parallel market reached N710 per dollar against a CBN official rate of N420. That is a spread of 69%. All three drivers of that spread which were, reserve adequacy, subsidy dollar demand, and capital account confidence, would have been maximally worse in the counterfactual 2026 scenario.

The modelled parallel rate ofN3,500-4,500 derives from the following chain. Subsidy dollar demand of $22-28 billion annually exhausts net reserves below $2 billion within six to nine months of crisis onset. At sub-$2 billion net reserves, the CBN loses capacity to defend the official rate. Confidence collapses. Capital flight accelerates. The parallel rate finds a new equilibrium reflecting the true scarcity of dollars in a market where government is consuming all available supply for fuel imports. The 2022 data point of N710 per dollar at $85 Brent and $8 billion net reserves scales directionally to N2,800-3,500 on conservative assumptions. The upper bound ofN4,500 reflects the additional panic premium that a Hormuz-level global crisis generates.

Actual April 2026 position: unified rate of Nl,380-1,450 per dollar. Net reserves of $34 billion – verified against IMF assessments, using a net calculation methodology that accounts for forward obligations and swap commitments. The gross figure of $50 billion is corroborated by CBN published data and the 51% All-Share Index rally of 2025, which reflects genuine foreign investor confidence.

Counterfactual versus actual — key indicators

III.    The Dangote Refinery as Structural Shock Absorber

The 2026 Hormuz crisis has validated the strategic rationale for domestic refining more

decisively than any peacetime analysis could. Nigeria’s pre-reform import dependency of 60-67 million litres per day created a vulnerability acceptable when global shipping was normal. The current crisis has fundamentally altered that calculus.

Tanker war-risk insurance has risen from 0.125% to 0.4% of hull value per transit. For a Very Large Crude Carrier at full capacity, this is an additional cost of approximately $250,000 per voyage. Major shipping lines have suspended Middle East routes. In this environment, a Nigeria importing 100% of its refined products would face not merely higher prices but actual supply collapse. The domestic refining buffer which is currently supplying approximately 50% of national fuel demand has meant that the supply shock is absorbed rather than transmitted. This is not a price story. It is an availability story.

The naira-crude arrangement adds a second layer of insulation by partially severing the link between the dollar exchange rate and the domestic fuel price. Under the naira-crude arrangement, the pricing chain runs from naira crude cost through naira refining margin to naira pump price. The dollar rate is relevant only at the margin of the remaining imported portion.

This structural partial de-dollarisation explains why Nigeria’s petrol, at $0.88 per litre, stands 33% below the global average of $1.32 and below every major peer market; this is without any subsidy.

Nigeria versus peer markets — pump price per litre (April 2026)

IV. Inflation Transmission –  Why the Disinflation Held

Nigeria’s headline inflation declined for eleven consecutive months to approximately 15% in early 2026. A note of transparency is required here.

The National Bureau of Statistics revised its inflation calculation methodology in late 2025, shifting the base year from 2009 to 2024 and changing the reference period. Under the previous methodology, December 2025 inflation would have been reported at approximately 31% rather than 15%. The NBS and international statistical reviewers have confirmed the revision is consistent with international best practice, correcting a known bias in the previous base-year approach.

Even accepting the higher figure of 31%, the disinflation trajectory is significant. It is down from

34.8% at the 2024 peak. And the counterfactual comparison survives entirely. 31% actual versus an estimated 75-120% counterfactual is a categorical difference, not a marginal one.

The counterfactual inflation range derives from empirical fuel-to-consumer price pass-through coefficients of0.7 to 1.2 for Nigeria, as established in CBN Research Department work and studies published in Energy Research Letters. Applied to a counterfactual fuel price shock of

300-400% above actual levels, even the lower bound coefficient of 0.7 produces implied inflation well above 200%. The conclusion is robust to significant downward revision of either input.

The actual disinflation is anchored by three reform linked structural changes. First, naira stability post unification reduces import cost volatility and breaks the depreciation/inflation feedback loop. Second, the Dangote refinery moderates domestic diesel prices, breaking the wholesale energy-to-food transmission chain that historically drove Nigeria’s food inflation. Third, fiscal consolidation freed the CBN to genuinely tighten the Monetary Policy Rate, which reached 27.5%; one of the highest real rates globally in 2025. Food inflation fell to 8.89% in January 2026, which is the first single-digit reading since May 2015.

Inflation — counterfactual versus actual

V. Sovereign Risk – The Sri Lanka Parallel and What Was Avoided

The counterfactual Nigeria of April 2026 maps closely to Sri Lanka at the point of its 2022 sovereign default. The profile is identical: a large subsidised energy bill consuming fiscal space; rapidly dwindling reserves; a maintained official exchange rate divorced from reality; rising import costs; and an exogenous commodity shock as the precipitating event. Sri Lanka’s net reserves fell below $100 million before its forced IMF programme. Inflation reached 70%.

Citizens queued for fuel and cooking gas for months.

Nigeria’s counterfactual reserve position where there is only below $2 billion net, with a subsidy bill exceeding the entire budget replicates that profile precisely. The IMF programme that would have been forced on Nigeria would have carried identical conditionalities to what President Tinubu enacted voluntarily in 2023. The difference is fundamental. Voluntary reform executed proactively, with reserves sufficient to manage the transition, is categorically different from forced reform executed in crisis, with no buffer, under IMF conditionality, and with a population already in distress. The outcomes of nominally identical policies are radically different depending on whether they are chosen or imposed.

Nigeria counterfactual versus Sri Lanka 2022 — the parallel

What This Is Not

This is not a claim that Nigerians are comfortable. Millions are struggling. The transition cost of these reforms fell very hard on everyone. That is a legitimate pain and reality.

This is neither a claim that Dangote’s market position is without risk. A single private refinery supplying half a nation’s fuel needs raises long-term competition questions that deserve their own serious analysis. Nigeria needs more privately built, managed and operated refineries.

What is this then? It is a fact-backed, honest account of four specific decisions that saved Nigeria, Nigerians and our economy as a State during the worst global energy crisis in half a century. A crisis which would have left the greater majority of us in the worst possible economic crisis that we have ever seen. Thankfully, that’s not the case.

In the simplest terms: an earthquake happened. Beautiful houses are crashing, collapsing and burning. But the house that President Tinubu built shook but it is still standing. That is because he ensured that the structural pillars (the macroeconomic principles) that would hold us safe were already in place.

The earthquake came. The Nigerian economy is still standing. We are not all starving,  queueing for days without hope of seeing fuel, not carrying our money in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread, not weeping to see our children dying because there are no medications, unable to fly abroad to escape because tickets cost a home. That is all because of President Tinubu’s four decisions when no one knew that the Hormuz crisis was coming.

Squadron Leader Adefola Amoo (Rtd) is a Nigerian Air Force veteran. He has served at the Presidency, Air Force Headquarters, federal ministries and agencies, and at state government level. He writes on governance, public policy, technology and security.

Read the general audience version of this analysis at adefolaamoo.com https://adefolaamoo.com/2026/04/07/four-decisions-the-reason-nigeria-did-not-collapse-in-2026/

© April 2026 – Squadron Leader Adefola Amoo (Rtd). Reproduction permitted with full attribution and a link to the original.