In Nigeria, the explosion of sachet-sized goods has become the most poignant symbol of a deepening economic crisis. From premium spirits and cooking oil to toothpaste, detergent, and powdered milk, everyday essentials now overwhelmingly appear in tiny, single-use packets on market shelves. This is not a story of clever market adaptation. It is the grim, physical manifestation of a national emergency, a stark indictment of systemic economic failure. The flagship “Renewed Hope” agenda, launched in 2023 with promises of revitalization, has instead delivered a reality where the dignity of survival is measured in grams and milliliters.
While government officials cite moderated inflation trends or strengthened foreign reserves, the lived reality of the Nigerian populace tells a profoundly different story. As of mid-December 2025, headline inflation stands at approximately 34.8%, with food inflation remaining stubbornly high at nearly 40%. These figures relentlessly erode purchasing power. With the naira trading around ₦1,450 to ₦1,500 to the US dollar on official markets, the currency has been eviscerated. The national minimum wage of ₦70,000, roughly $48 at current rates, is mathematically insufficient. It cannot cover even a 50kg bag of rice, let alone rent, transport, and healthcare for a family. Fast-Moving Consumer Goods giants like Unilever and Nestlé, alongside local producers, have aggressively downsized offerings to cater to this collapsed demand. Products once sold in bulk are now fragmented into sachets, enabling daily or weekly purchases for those living hand-to-mouth. However, the economics of this “sachetization” reveals a cruel “poverty penalty.” Consumers buying in sachets often pay 20% to 40% more per unit volume compared to bulk purchases. This perpetuates a vicious cycle where the poor, out of necessity, allocate a higher percentage of their dwindling income just to access basic necessities.
This phenomenon is not an accident. It is the direct result of cascading policy shocks. The 2023 fuel subsidy removal tripled petrol prices overnight, inflating logistics and transportation costs for every single good. The chaotic flotation of the naira rendered imported raw materials exorbitantly expensive, crippling local manufacturing. These shocks have triggered an exodus of multinational corporations, including giants like GSK and Procter & Gamble, which have shuttered local production, further disrupting supply chains and eliminating jobs. The result is an economy in retreat, where even mid-tier brands must resort to sachet formats as a desperate strategy to retain any market share.
The most damning aspect of this “sachet economy” is its stark contrast with the unchecked opulence at the highest levels of government. While citizens ration detergent and buy cooking oil by the spoon, the political elite demonstrates grotesque detachment. Controversies over fleets of luxury SUVs for legislators, billions of naira allocated for renovations of presidential and legislative quarters, and allegations of lavish, unaccountable agency spending persist without consequence. This duality signals a profound impunity and bloated governance costs, applying austerity only to the governed, not the governors. This elite detachment fuels a deep and growing resentment. Leaders completely insulated from the hyperinflation ravaging household budgets enjoy a reality of abundance, while the masses manage a precarious existence defined by sachets. The broader consequence is the erasure of the Nigerian middle class. The economic habits that define a stable life such as bulk buying for monthly planning, investing in durable goods, saving for the future, have vanished for most. The nation is being pushed into a uniform state of precarity.
Compounding this domestic distress is Nigeria’s rapidly diminishing stature on the African continent. Once hailed as Africa’s giant and its largest economy, the country has increasingly become a cautionary tale among its peers. While nations like Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ethiopia have made tangible strides in stabilizing basic infrastructure, improving electricity access, and fostering more resilient economic policies, Nigeria lags in resolving even its most foundational challenges. Persistent nationwide power outages, inadequate healthcare delivery, and erratic policy shifts have allowed several sub-Saharan African nations to surpass Nigeria in key development metrics. This erosion of leadership risks turning Nigeria from a regional beacon into a regional laughingstock, fundamentally undermining its potential to drive pan-African progress.
Yet, this growing resentment carries profound and immediate risks. While Nigerians have demonstrated remarkable, almost proverbial, patience in the face of political excesses and economic mismanagement, it is a profound error for the ruling class to interpret this patience as perpetual consent. History offers sobering lessons from across the globe: from the popular uprisings in North Africa during the Arab Spring to the dramatic protests in Sri Lanka that toppled a government, prolonged and collective hardship has a definitive breaking point. In Nigeria itself, the #EndSARS movement of 2020 should have served as a definitive warning. What began as a youth-led protest against police brutality rapidly escalated into a nationwide outcry with broader demands for accountability and good governance, exposing the deep fragility of the social order when grievances are allowed to accumulate unchecked. To ignore these signals is to invite the potential for renewed, and likely more intense, social unrest that could threaten the very stability the administration claims to protect.
Nigeria stands at a precipice. The sachetized economy embodies acute distress, where “Renewed Hope” has morphed into a grim daily calculus of survival. To avert irreversible social fracture, the single most urgent reform is a radical, enforced reduction in the exorbitant cost of governance. This must begin with the courageous political will to slash the salaries and allowances of federal legislators and other political office holders by a significant margin, to make public service less about personal enrichment and more about national duty. Furthermore, the government must enforce its own monetization policy, treating the national budget as a binding document, with severe sanctions for Ministries, Departments, and Agencies that propose frivolous or repetitive items. It is also imperative to end the recurrent and entrenched practice of budget padding, a pernicious cycle sustained by direct collusion between the executive and the legislature, where inflated allocations are inserted to serve political patronage rather than national need. Implementing these public financial management reforms to promote judicious spending and a culture of cost-consciousness is not merely an economic imperative, but the foundational step to rebuilding the social contract between the Nigerian state and its citizens. This is important because any agenda for currency stabilization or export diversification is doomed to fail as long as the state remains a voracious consumer of its own scarce resources.
The moment to decisively prioritize people over privilege is now. Failure to act risks not only domestic upheaval but the permanent diminishment of Africa’s most populous nation and its potential. The alternative, a continued descent into a sachetized existence, is a future no Nigerian deserves. With resolute leadership and collective will, Nigeria can yet transform this era of renewed hopelessness into a genuine national renewal, restoring dignity, prosperity, and pride for its citizens and the continent at large.
