Global Shock, Local Neglect: How Nigeria Fails to Buffer Citizens from the Iran War
The Iran War: World Shields Economies, Nigeria Fails Its Citizens – The ongoing tensions surrounding Iran are sending shockwaves across the global economy. Energy markets have been destabilized, oil prices are rising, and inflationary pressures are intensifying across continents. For ordinary citizens, this translates into a familiar but painful reality: rising costs of transportation, food, and basic living.
In Nigeria, however, the consequences have been particularly severe—and revealing.
Petrol prices have surged dramatically, rising from about ₦820 to over ₦1,400 per litre within a short period. This increase has triggered a chain reaction across the economy. Transport fares have spiked, food prices have climbed, and the cost of doing business has become even more prohibitive. For millions of Nigerians already struggling under economic strain, this latest shock has pushed survival further out of reach.
Yet, in the face of this crisis, the Nigerian state has demonstrated a troubling absence of urgency and responsibility. Rather than deploy policy tools to cushion the effects of global volatility, the government has largely retreated into a posture of explanation—offering external justifications while leaving citizens to absorb the full weight of the crisis.
This stands in stark contrast to how other countries are responding.
Across Europe, governments have moved swiftly to protect their citizens through targeted interventions. In Spain, authorities introduced a €5 billion relief package through a Royal Decree-Law. This intervention reduced VAT on energy from 21% to 10%, capped butane gas prices, and provided direct support to vulnerable sectors such as agriculture, transportation, and fisheries. Spain also released millions of barrels of oil from its strategic reserves to stabilize domestic supply and prevent excessive price volatility.
In Germany, the government responded by regulating petrol station pricing and restructuring its energy sourcing strategy to reduce vulnerability. Italy redirected excess VAT revenues generated from rising fuel prices back to citizens while imposing penalties on companies exploiting the crisis. Portugal reduced diesel taxes and returned additional VAT income to taxpayers, while Hungary introduced price caps on fuel for domestic consumers to shield households from inflationary shocks.
Other countries adopted equally strategic measures. France leveraged corporate-state coordination to cap fuel prices through major energy firms, while Austria limited how frequently fuel prices could be adjusted. Poland pursued a cautious but deliberate approach aimed at maintaining market stability without abandoning social protection.
These responses differ in design, but they are united by a common principle: in times of crisis, the state must act as a stabilizer.
Nigeria, unfortunately, appears to be operating outside this fundamental logic of governance.
Under the leadership of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, economic policy continues to be framed around a rigid interpretation of neoliberalism—one that prioritizes market self-regulation even in moments of clear market failure. The state presents itself as constrained, suggesting that intervention is either undesirable or impossible.
But this position is not only questionable—it is historically and economically flawed.
No serious economy has developed by abandoning its citizens to unregulated market forces during periods of crisis. From the United States to China, from the United Kingdom to Japan, state intervention has always played a central role in stabilizing economies, protecting citizens, and guiding long-term development. Subsidies, price controls, tax adjustments, and targeted social protection measures are not anomalies—they are standard tools of responsible governance.
Even within the current global crisis, the debate in most countries is not whether the state should act, but how best to act.
Nigeria, by contrast, appears trapped in a different debate entirely—one that questions the legitimacy of intervention itself.
This raises critical concerns about policy direction and governance priorities.
Nigeria is not just any country in the global energy market; it is a major oil-producing nation. With the operational presence of the Dangote Refinery, there exists a unique opportunity to shield the domestic economy from external shocks. Yet, this potential is undermined by policy contradictions that defy both economic logic and public interest.
One such contradiction is the continued pricing of crude oil for domestic refining in foreign currency. In a country where the national currency is the Naira, this practice raises serious questions about sovereignty, regulatory coherence, and economic rationality. Institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria explicitly discourage domestic transactions in foreign currencies, yet policy practices appear to contradict this framework.
These inconsistencies suggest a deeper problem—not merely policy inefficiency, but systemic impunity.
It is therefore important to state clearly: the hardship Nigerians are experiencing today cannot be attributed solely to external shocks such as the Iran crisis.
Rather, it reflects a long-standing pattern of state failure, weak institutional capacity, and elite impunity.
The persistent dysfunction of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries—despite years of investment, repeated turnaround maintenance, and ongoing personnel costs—illustrates the scale of governance failure. Public resources continue to be expended without corresponding public value, while citizens are left to navigate the consequences of institutional collapse.
What is often presented as economic reform is, in reality, a withdrawal of state responsibility.
Removing fuel subsidy, for instance, does not in itself demonstrate reform capacity. True reform lies in the ability to design and implement systems that ensure efficiency, transparency, and accountability. It requires the state to actively manage resources, regulate markets, and protect citizens from exploitation and systemic shocks.
From a development communication perspective, the current situation represents more than an economic crisis—it is a crisis of governance narrative and public trust.
Citizens are being asked to endure increasing hardship without meaningful engagement, without participatory dialogue, and without credible assurances that their sacrifices will lead to improved outcomes. This communication gap deepens distrust, weakens democratic legitimacy, and reinforces the perception that governance is disconnected from the lived realities of the people.
In people-centred development, communication is not merely about messaging—it is about inclusion, transparency, and accountability. When citizens are excluded from the logic of policy decisions, the result is not just economic strain, but democratic erosion.
Nigeria’s challenge, therefore, is not simply about responding to a global crisis, especially caused by the US-Iran War. It is about redefining the role of the state in relation to its citizens.
Until governance is re-centred around public interest, strategic intervention, and accountability, external shocks will continue to expose internal weaknesses. The Iran crisis may have triggered the current economic pressures, but it has also revealed something deeper: a state that is increasingly distant from its responsibility to protect its people.
And until that changes, the cycle of hardship will persist.
Article written by :
Audu Liberty Oseni, PhD
Director, Centre for Development Communication
libertydgreat@gmail.com
