A comparison circulating online argues that a Nigerian minimum wage earner sending a child to university was better off in dollar terms under former President Goodluck Jonathan than under President Bola Tinubu, even after accounting for Tinubu’s minimum wage increase and the new NELFUND (Nigerian Education Loan Fund, the federal government’s student loan scheme) support. We ran the underlying numbers to see how they hold up.
Checking the math
Under Jonathan, minimum wage was N18,000 a month, at an exchange rate of roughly N160 to the dollar. That works out to about $112.50 a month, or $1,350 a year. Using the estimates in the comparison, university tuition, accommodation and feeding for one child cost about $1,062.50 a year, leaving a minimum wage earner around $287.50 for the rest of the family’s upkeep.
Under Tinubu, the minimum wage rose to N70,000 a month, or N840,000 a year. NELFUND covers tuition directly to the institution, with amounts varying by school, and offers a fixed upkeep allowance (a monthly stipend meant to help with feeding and daily costs) of N20,000, which is N240,000 a year, not N244,000 as the original comparison stated. Correcting that small error, and using an example institutional loan of N500,000, total NELFUND support would come to N740,000 a year. Added to the minimum wage of N840,000, that is N1,580,000 in total.
At the comparison’s chosen rate of N1,500 to the dollar, that comes to about $1,053, close to, but slightly below, the $1,056 originally claimed. Set against Jonathan-era minimum wage of $1,350, that leaves a gap of roughly $297, not the $293.50 in the original post, though the two figures are close enough that the correction doesn’t change the broader picture.
Two caveats worth noting
First, the naira has strengthened somewhat since the comparison’s assumed rate. As of early August 2026, the dollar traded at roughly N1,368 officially and around N1,425 on the parallel market, both stronger than the N1,500 used in the calculation. Using a more current rate would narrow the dollar gap slightly, though not close it.
Second, and more importantly, converting naira incomes to dollars mainly tells us how Nigerians’ earnings compare internationally, not how far that money stretches locally, since minimum wage earners spend almost entirely in naira on largely domestically priced goods. A fuller comparison would weigh local food, rent, and transport prices against wages in each period, rather than a dollar conversion alone. On that front, Nigeria’s inflation rate has stayed above 20 percent for most of the past three years, which has eaten into the naira value of the new minimum wage as well.
Why the gap exists: subsidy removal and the float
President Tinubu has said that removing the petrol subsidy and floating the naira increased government revenue in naira terms, and that this funded both the minimum wage increase and NELFUND. Government officials have pointed to increased federal allocations to states following the subsidy removal as evidence that more naira revenue is now available for public spending, including wages. Critics, including the labour unions that negotiated the N70,000 wage, argue the increase has already been eroded by the same inflation and currency depreciation that the subsidy removal and float helped trigger, and have called for a further review of the minimum wage.
There is also a structural difference worth flagging: NELFUND is a loan, not a grant. Repayment begins two years after a graduate completes the mandatory National Youth Service Corps, with 10 percent of their salary deducted automatically until it’s repaid. That means, unlike a straightforward wage increase, this portion of the comparison represents borrowed money a graduate will eventually have to pay back, a point the original comparison itself acknowledged.
What would close the gap
Economists have generally pointed to a narrower, more practical set of fixes than a return to the pre-float exchange system: bringing down inflation through tighter monetary policy and improved food supply chains, shortening the minimum wage review cycle so pay adjusts faster to price changes (already reduced from five to three years under the 2024 law), and expanding targeted cash transfer or subsidy programmes for the poorest households rather than broad, blanket subsidies that mostly benefited wealthier car owners.
The Bigger Picture
The core claim in this comparison holds up reasonably well once the small arithmetic slip is corrected: a Nigerian minimum wage earner’s income, measured in dollars, has indeed fallen sharply since 2015, even after the 2024 wage increase and new student loan scheme are added in. That is a real and painful part of the picture for households living on the minimum wage.
But dollar comparisons can flatten a more complicated story. Nigeria’s economic troubles didn’t start in 2023, and the subsidy regime the comparison treats as a baseline was itself a major drain on government finances that had left little room for investment in things like healthcare, roads or, ironically, education. Whether the trade-off embedded in the reforms was the right one, and whether it was managed as well as it could have been, are questions worth debating on their own terms, with full information rather than a single exchange-rate snapshot. What isn’t in dispute is that, for now, the naira in a minimum wage earner’s pocket buys less of the world than it used to, and government promises about where the subsidy savings went will keep being measured against household budgets like the one in this comparison.
Published by Chuks Nwachuku
