A wave of public anger is building across Nigeria following fresh criticisms tied to government spending and worsening economic conditions, with former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s remarks adding fuel to an already heated national conversation.
Sometimes, a single phrase captures the collective frustration of an entire nation. The widely discussed “drunken sailor” characterization of government spending has struck a nerve with many Nigerians because it mirrors a contradiction they experience daily.
On one hand, citizens have repeatedly been told by this administration and its supporters that the country’s finances were in ruins, that the economy was in poor shape, and that painful sacrifices were unavoidable. On the other hand, government expenditure continues to appear extravagant, lavish, and completely out of touch with the hardship playing out on the streets.
That disconnect is the root of the anger. A government cannot tell its people there is no money while governing with the body language of wealth.
It cannot ask the poor to endure hunger while political power continues to travel in luxury convoys, occupy expensive offices, embark on frequent foreign trips, borrow heavily, and maintain elite comfort as though nothing is wrong.
If the treasury was truly empty, genuine leadership would have started with visible sacrifice from the top not from the bottom.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has weighed in, describing Nigeria under President Tinubu’s watch as showing signs of a failing state, and tying the country’s decline to corruption, weak leadership, and poor governance.
His criticism resonates not because of who he is, but because it speaks directly to what ordinary Nigerians are living through economic hardship, rising insecurity, deepening division, and growing frustration.
Even those within the president’s own circle have leaned on the “empty treasury” argument to justify borrowing and economic pressure.
Former Ogun State Governor Olusegun Osoba, for instance, defended the administration’s borrowing by blaming the previous government for leaving the treasury bare.
But that defence raises an uncomfortable question: if the treasury was truly empty, why is the government not governing with the urgency and discipline of an administration facing a genuine emergency?
Borrowing, in itself, is not the problem. Nations and governments borrow that is a normal part of economic management. But borrowing becomes politically unacceptable when citizens see no matching restraint, no visible reduction in waste, no meaningful relief, and no improvement in their everyday lives.
A government that borrows in the name of national survival cannot simultaneously spend with the confidence of someone who has never known scarcity.
Nigerians are not simply angry that their leaders are navigating a tough economy. They are angry because the burden is not being shared equally. The poor are making sacrifices.
The middle class is shrinking. Small businesses are suffocating. Food prices are crushing families. Yet the political class continues to behave as though hardship is a condition reserved only for voters.
That is why Obasanjo’s warning regardless of one’s opinion of the man will continue to resonate. The message is straightforward: if the treasury was empty, the government must stop spending as though it is overflowing.