In 1986, General Ibrahim Babangida stood before Nigerians and announced a bitter medicine called the Structural Adjustment Programme. The IMF and World Bank had prescribed it. The medicine's name was devaluation, subsidy removal, trade liberalization, and privatization. Its effect was a lost decade: industries collapsed, the middle class was crushed, and the Naira, once stronger than the dollar was thrown into an endless freefall.
Nigerians were told it was temporary. They were told the pain would birth prosperity.
Thirty-eight years later, the pain is all that remains.
What began in 2015 under Muhammadu Buhari and has accelerated under Bola Tinubu is not a new economic policy. It is the same poison, repackaged, administered without the pretense of Nigerian ownership, and this time enforced by a United States that no longer bothers to hide behind multilateral facades. The IMF still calls it "reform." The World Bank still calls it "stabilization." But Nigerians know what it is: SAP 2.0.
And this time, the Americans are not just pulling strings from Washington. They are holding a dossier, a 1993 forfeiture case that gives them leverage over the man signing the papers.
The Nigerian economy has been on a single trajectory since 1986: downward, with occasional pauses for breath. Every attempt to reverse course has been sabotaged by the same forces that demanded SAP in the first place.
When Muhammadu Buhari took power in 1983 as military Head of State, he did something that would haunt him three decades later. He refused the IMF's demands. He stood his ground against devaluation. He kept the Naira strong, kept subsidy in place, and told the World Bank that Nigeria would not be another laboratory for neoliberal experiments. As he later recalled, "The IMF and the World Bank wanted us to devalue the naira and remove petrol subsidy but I stood my grounds for the good of Nigeria".
He was removed in 1985. Babangida took over. SAP was imposed. The Naira was devalued by 80 percent. And Buhari spent the rest of his political career watching the consequences unfold.
When Buhari returned as civilian president in 2015, he faced a choice: continue the resistance or surrender. For the first seven years of his administration, he resisted. He refused to float the Naira. He kept the subsidy in place, however inefficient. He spoke openly about his skepticism. In a 2016 interview with Al Jazeera, he explained why he was going against IMF demands: "Buhari knew that Nigeria would not survive another SAP".
But resistance has a cost. By 2022, Buhari's administration had run out of options. The World Bank later identified the policy missteps of the 2015–2023 period: deficit financing, subsidized loans that distorted markets, foreign exchange restrictions that raised costs, and an overvalued Naira that drained reserves. The resistance had become its own crisis.
When Bola Tinubu took office in May 2023, he did what Buhari had refused to do for eight years. Within hours of his inauguration, he announced the removal of fuel subsidy. Days later, the Naira was floated. The IMF's 2024 Article IV Consultation praised Nigeria's "bold reforms" . In June 2025, IMF senior economist Paulo Paz thanked the Federal Inland Revenue Service for its "strong ownership of the tax policy advice" .
The ghost of SAP had found a willing host.
The parallels between 1986 and today are not accidental. They are structural.
In 1986, SAP required:
- Devaluation of the Naira through the Second-Tier Foreign Exchange Market
- Removal of subsidies on petroleum and fertilizer
- Trade liberalization to open Nigerian markets to foreign goods
- Privatization of state-owned enterprises
- Austerity through reduced government spending
In 2024–2026, the same package is being implemented:
- The Naira has been floated, depreciating from under N500/$ in 2023 to over N1,600/$ by early 2025
- Fuel subsidy has been removed, with prices jumping from under N200/litre to over N600/litre
- The IMF has praised tax reforms designed to widen the net and increase government revenue
- Ports are being handed to foreign management—the UK in March 2026 [citation:user]
- Taxes are being structured to favor French multinationals under opaque agreements
The result is the same as it was in 1986. As the Leadership newspaper noted in November 2025: "Today's policies, subsidy removal, currency flotation, and tax base expansion is a reanimation of the SAP philosophy" .
And the consequences are identical: inflation that destroys purchasing power, industries that cannot survive, and a population pushed deeper into poverty.
The data tells a story that no amount of government spin can obscure.
Between 2015 and 2019 alone, the manufacturing sector lost over 50 companies that shut down across the country. These closures, documented by the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria (MAN), were attributed to foreign exchange scarcity, high energy costs, and Naira devaluation. The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission reported that over 50 multinational and local enterprises shut down or relocated between 2015 and 2022.
The list of casualties reads like a graveyard of Nigerian industry:
- Western Metal Products Company (WEMPCO), founded 1954, shut many of its factories by 2018
- Malar-XT, a pharmaceutical company, closed in 2017
- Standard Biscuits Nigeria Ltd., closed in 2020
- NASCO Fiber Product Ltd., closed in 2020
- Union Trading Company Nigeria PLC, closed in 2020
- Deli Foods Nigeria Ltd. , closed in 2020
- GlaxoSmithKline Nigeria, shut its drug production plant in 2021, then quit Nigeria entirely in August 2023
- Unilever Nigeria PLC, stopped production of OMO, Sunlight, and Lux in 2023, leasing out its factory
- Procter & Gamble Nigeria, dissolved on-ground operations in December 2023 after a $300 million plant shut down
- Kimberly-Clark Nigeria, shut its Lagos manufacturing facility in 2024
- Diageo PLC, sold its 58.02% stake in Guinness Nigeria in June 2024
- Equinor Nigeria, sold its business after 30 years and exited
Between 2023 and 2024, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group reported that 7.2 million micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), approximately 30 percent of Nigeria's 24 million registered MSMEs shut down due to harsh economic conditions. An analysis from MAN indicates that the manufacturing sector was the hardest hit, with 767 closures and 335 distressed firms by 2023 .
This is not reform. This is deindustrialization.
The current round of SAP differs from the 1986 version in one critical respect: the United States is no longer acting through the IMF and World Bank alone. It is acting directly, and it has leverage.
In 1993, a civil asset forfeiture case was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois involving funds linked to Bola Tinubu. The case, United States v. Funds in Certain Accounts (No. 93 C 4483), alleged that more than $1.4 million in various accounts under Tinubu's control was connected to narcotics trafficking or money-laundering activity. Tinubu was never arrested, indicted, or convicted. But under the coercive civil forfeiture laws of the era, which legal scholars like Leonard Levy called "a license to steal" and which Congress later reformed in 2000 precisely because they were "fundamentally unfair", the parties reached a settlement. $460,000 was forfeited. The remainder was returned.
For three decades, this case has shadowed Tinubu. In 1999, opponents raised it in court to challenge his gubernatorial candidacy. In 2023, it resurfaced during the presidential election. The courts ruled that the forfeiture did not disqualify him.
But the legal outcome is not the full story. What matters now is that the documents underpinning that case have never been fully released.
In 2022, transparency advocate Aaron Greenspan filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI and DEA for records related to the investigation. The FBI initially announced it would release approximately 2,500 pages in monthly batches of 500 pages. Then the process stalled. Tinubu opposed the disclosure while his election petition was before Nigeria's Supreme Court. The court approved a pause.
After the Supreme Court upheld Tinubu's election, the FBI and DEA continued to delay. Deadlines shifted from August 2025 to September, then December, then January 2026, then February. By February 2026, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the US District Court for the District of Columbia had had enough.
She issued a blistering ruling. "Defendant FBI has produced no records, despite initially anticipating completion of searches by August 1, 2025," she wrote. Deadlines had been repeatedly shifted with "minimal explanation". She ordered both agencies to submit sworn affidavits explaining their failures. She imposed new deadlines. She made it clear that further delays would not be tolerated.
As of March 2026, the documents have not been released. The FBI's new deadline is June 1, 2026. But the message is unmistakable: the United States government possesses a dossier on the Nigerian president, a dossier it has spent three years refusing to release, a dossier it can use as leverage whenever it chooses.
This is not speculation. This is the logic of power. A foreign leader whose financial past is documented in sealed FBI files is a leader who can be pressured. A leader whose administration is currently implementing IMF-endorsed reforms that open Nigerian markets to American goods and services is a leader who understands what happens if he deviates.
The contradictions of American policy toward Nigeria would be comical if they were not so devastating.
For two decades, the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has been the centerpiece of US-Africa trade relations. Under AGOA, eligible Nigerian exports enter the US tariff-free. Nigeria has exported an estimated $277 billion worth of goods to the US under the program since 2000, though the vast majority has been crude oil.
In April 2025, President Donald Trump announced a new 14 percent tariff on Nigerian exports. The tariff undercuts AGOA's duty-free access, making Nigerian goods more expensive in the US market. For the small but growing non-oil exports - cocoa, sesame seeds, cashew nuts, shea butter, this is devastating. For the broader Nigerian economy, it is a betrayal.
As the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce president noted, the tariff "erodes the benefit" of AGOA, potentially forcing Nigerian exporters to raise prices or absorb losses, reducing their competitiveness against other AGOA countries still enjoying duty-free access.
The message is clear: the United States demands that Nigeria open its markets to American goods, liberalize its economy, and implement IMF reforms. But when Nigeria attempts to export its own goods to the US, it faces tariffs. When Nigeria seeks to diversify beyond oil, it finds its markets closing.
This is not partnership. This is predation dressed in trade policy.
There is a final question that must be asked: where are the activists?
In 1986, when SAP was imposed, Nigerians took to the streets. Students protested. Workers went on strike. Civil society mobilized. The resistance was real, and it was costly.
Today, a similar package of policies - devaluation, subsidy removal, and trade liberalization is being implemented with even greater speed and less consultation. The Nigerian Labour Congress has threatened strikes, but the response has been muted. The protests that erupted in Kenya over the 2024 Finance Bill have no parallel in Nigeria.
Why? The answer is uncomfortable, but it must be spoken.
The civil society organizations that should be leading the resistance are funded by Western foundations -the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, that are themselves aligned with American foreign policy objectives. The activists who dominate Nigerian Twitter are more interested in personal feuds and performative outrage than in structural critique. The opposition politicians who could mobilize mass resistance are either complicit in the looting or terrified of the dossiers that Western intelligence agencies hold on them.
And then there is Omoyele Sowore, the self-proclaimed revolutionary who has made a career out of attacking everyone except the people actually dismantling the Nigerian economy. He has criticized Governor Alex Otti for "partial transformation". He has called Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa one of the worst in Nigeria. But on the UK port deal? On the French tax takeover? On the Chinese mineral extraction in the north? On the IMF reforms that are impoverishing millions? Silence.
The controlled opposition does what it is designed to do: it provides the appearance of dissent while ensuring that no genuine movement emerges to challenge the fundamental structures of exploitation.
So what does the United States actually want from Nigeria?
The answer is not complicated. Washington wants what it has always wanted: access to Nigerian resources, alignment with American geopolitical objectives, and a Nigerian economy structured to serve American corporate interests.
The IMF reforms that Tinubu is implementing -subsidy removal, currency flotation, tax expansion- are not designed to make Nigerians prosperous. They are designed to make Nigeria safe for American capital. A devalued Naira makes Nigerian assets cheaper for American investors. Trade liberalization opens Nigerian markets to American goods. Privatization allows American firms to acquire Nigerian industries at fire-sale prices.
The current conflict in Iran, which the US has escalated through Operation Epic Fury, is fundamentally about energy, about severing China's access to Iranian oil and preserving the petrodollar system that underpins American global dominance. Nigeria, as a major oil producer, is caught in this crossfire. The US does not want Nigeria aligning with China or trading oil in renminbi. It wants Nigerian oil flowing through American-dominated channels.
The AGOA expiration in September 2025 and the imposition of new tariffs are not accidents. They are signals: the era of American "partnership" with Africa is over. What replaces it is transactional engagement, conditional access, and the naked assertion of American power.
Let us tally the score.
Since 2015:
- Over 767 manufacturing companies have closed
- 7.2 million MSMEs have shut down
- The Naira has depreciated from under N200/$ to over N1,600/$
- Fuel prices have increased from under N200/litre to over N600/litre
- Nigeria has become the world capital of multidimensional poverty, with 133 million Nigerians now classified as poor
- Unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, is estimated at over 60 percent
- The manufacturing sector's capacity utilization has fallen to between 30 and 45 percent
These are not statistics. They are lives destroyed. They are factories that once employed thousands now standing empty. They are graduates who cannot find work. They are families that can no longer afford food.
And what has been gained? Nothing. The Ajaokuta Steel Mill still lies fallow. The refineries still do not refine. The ports still do not function. Nigeria remains a raw material exporter, importing finished goods it should be manufacturing itself.
We have traced the thread from 1986 to 2026. From Babangida to Buhari to Tinubu. From SAP to "reform." From IMF conditionality to direct American leverage. The thread is unbroken.
The Structural Adjustment Programme of 1986 was supposed to be temporary. It was supposed to be the bitter medicine that cured the disease. Instead, it became the disease. Thirty-eight years later, Nigerians are still being told to tighten their belts, to endure the pain, to wait for the prosperity that never comes.
The United States, which demanded SAP in 1986, is now demanding SAP 2.0. It holds a dossier on the Nigerian president, a 1993 forfeiture case that it can release or withhold as it chooses. It imposes tariffs on Nigerian goods while demanding that Nigerian markets stay open. It preaches democracy while funding civil society organizations that ensure no genuine opposition emerges.
The museum that will commemorate Nigeria's disappearance is not yet built. But the foundation was poured in 1986. The walls were raised between 2015 and 2023. And now, under Tinubu, the roof is being added. When the museum opens, the exhibits will include the closed factories, the devalued currency, the impoverished population, and the leaders who signed it all away.
The architects are still drawing plans. The question is whether Nigerians will continue to watch, or whether they will finally demand that the building stop.
"In 1986, we were told SAP would bring prosperity. Today, we are told the same thing about 'reforms.' The only difference is that now, the Americans don't bother to hide behind the IMF. They sit in Washington, hold the dossier, and wait for the signatures."