By
Nze David N. Ugwu
By any sober metric, these are stern times. Prices have galloped; food has tested the limits of the average family’s pocket; the naira has lurched; and the national mood has dimmed. Even with recent easing, headline inflation was still above 21% in July 2025; food inflation remains punishing for households. The exchange rate hovers in the ₦1,500-per-dollar band, after two years of turbulent devaluations. Poverty is deep and widespread, with tens of millions living below the poverty line. These are not abstract figures; they map onto the daily anxieties of transport fare, garri, school fees, rent.
Against this backdrop, an article praising “foolishness” sounds perverse. But stay with me. By “foolishness,” I do not mean ignorance, swagger without substance, or the noisy refusal to learn. Nigeria has suffered enough from that kind of foolishness—performative competence masking empty rooms. What I mean is a different species: the courageous, counter-cultural, often ridiculed willingness to believe, to experiment, to ask simple questions everyone else is too sophisticated to ask, and to act when the “reasonable” thing is to do nothing. Call it beginner’s mind, holy mischief, or strategic naivety. In the right doses, this “foolishness” is a public good.
Below are seven ways this kind of foolishness can help Nigeria break the gridlock of cynicism.
1) The foolishness of asking obvious questions
Sophisticated failure thrives on jargon. In the wake of big-bang reforms—fuel subsidy removal, FX unification—Nigerians were told to wait for market forces to heal all things, while basic costs exploded. The “clever” conversation raced to macro theory; the “foolish” questions were: Will people eat? How do teachers get to work? What’s the bridge between today’s pain and tomorrow’s promise? Those are nation-saving questions. Even reform-minded economists acknowledge the immediate shocks were brutal and needed cushioning. If reforms don’t foreground household survival, they risk becoming self-defeating. Financial TimesAfrobarometercdn.b12.io
The benefit of foolishness here is moral clarity. It keeps policy tethered to the kitchen table rather than conference-room abstractions.
2) The foolishness of demanding timelines and yardsticks
It sounds naive to ask for a scoreboard: What does success look like in 6, 12, 24 months? Which leading indicators will we publish monthly? Yet this is precisely how you rebuild trust. Announce targets for food inflation, transport costs on key corridors, under-5 malnutrition in hotspot LGAs, electricity reliability in pilot clusters—and report progress publicly, even when it’s ugly. Reducing inflation from its multi-year peaks is welcome; translating that into cheaper beans, rice, and transport is the real victory the public can feel.
Foolishness in this sense is insisting on measurable mercy—metrics that matter to citizens, not just to markets.
3) The foolishness of small bets (instead of grandstanding)
Nigeria loves a masterplan. But big-bangs without buffers invite backlash and reversal. The “foolish” alternative is to run small, time-boxed pilots with transparent learn-or-shut-down clauses: targeted transport vouchers delivered via verified SIMs in three cities; staple-food price stabilization in five flood-prone LGAs during peak lean season; FX access pilots for critical inputs with strict disclosure; pre-paid electricity “reliability credits” in two industrial clusters. Publish the results—warts and all—and scale only what works.
This approach respects the reality that policy design under uncertainty must be iterative. It looks modest; it is, in fact, the fastest way to compound national competence.
4) The foolishness of protecting truth-tellers and jesters
Every system needs people who can puncture groupthink—journalists, auditors, stand-up comedians, campus newspapers, anonymous civil-service memos that call a sham a sham. In an era when households are squeezed and public trust is thin, protecting those who say the uncomfortable thing is not a luxury. If you doubt the stakes, follow the money trails around fuel pricing and importation; opacity has historically enabled costs to balloon and “subsidies” to re-emerge off-budget. Sunlight is cheaper than scandal.
We need legal shields for whistleblowers, real consequences for censorship, and a cultural norm that treats satire as civic hygiene, not treason.
5) The foolishness of localising solutions
Call it “provincial” to ask why tomatoes rot in Jos while prices soar in Port Harcourt. The wise fools of logistics will map one corridor at a time: fix two bad bridges, one police extortion point, three cold-chain gaps; track tomato prices weekly; and celebrate the boring miracle when losses fall and prices ease. In food systems under inflation pressure, this is not glamorous but it’s game-changing. When nearly half the country is estimated to be in poverty, micro-efficiencies add up to survival.
6) The foolishness of radical transparency in FX and fuel
It is apparently “unsophisticated” to demand a clear, accessible public dashboard for FX inflows/outflows, market trades, and petrol pricing templates. But technocratic opacity is a luxury we can’t afford. Post daily FX auction summaries; publish petrol pricing assumptions; disclose arrears and payment schedules. When citizens can see the system, rumors lose oxygen. The exchange rate will still move, but public understanding will improve—and with it, resilience.
7) The foolishness of hope
Hope looks foolish when prices bite and jobs are scarce. Yet hope is a productive asset: it keeps families investing in education, SMEs trying a second time, farmers planting after floods, graduates resisting the lure of crime. Data alone cannot produce hope; evidence of straight dealing can. When people see fair rules, consistent enforcement, and leaders who admit mistakes quickly, hope returns—and with it, the energy that powers growth.
What this “foolishness” is not
It is not denial. The numbers are real: inflation only recently eased from 30-year highs; food prices remain elevated; the naira’s volatility complicates planning; poverty is pervasive; and public frustration with subsidy reforms has been loud and legitimate. Pretending otherwise insults people’s intelligence.
It is also not a license for incompetence. Boldness without feedback loops is bravado. The “foolishness” Nigeria needs is disciplined, measurable, and humble enough to change course.
A short playbook for leaders (and citizens)
- Publish citizen-facing scoreboards. Monthly dashboards that track food staples, transport fares, grid reliability, school attendance, and primary-health stockouts in five pilot states. Tie bonuses to improvements that citizens can verify.
- Pilot, don’t proclaim. Run 90-day, limited-scope interventions with public learning notes. End what fails. Scale what works.
- Guarantee truth-tellers. Strengthen whistleblower protections; set up independent ombuds offices in key MDAs; fund investigative journalism through transparent public interest endowments.
- Make FX and fuel boringly transparent. Daily, comprehensible disclosures—rates, volumes, payment arrears—so citizens and firms can plan.
- Localise logistics fixes. Choose five high-impact produce corridors; remove specific frictions; publish price effects weekly. Target practical wins over press-conference promises.
- Protect the arts. Comedy, film, and music are not distractions; they are pressure-release valves and truth-delivery mechanisms. National resilience rises when criticism can be funny—and safe.
- Name the bridge. For any tough reform, identify the concrete supports that carry vulnerable households from pain to payoff: time-limited cash transfers, transport vouchers, or school-meal expansions—funded and transparently monitored. Evidence shows the pain was real; the bridge must be real too.
A final word
A country does not reform by clever tweets. It reforms when a critical mass of people—leaders and citizens—choose a “foolish” posture: to ask childlike questions, to try small things fast, to tell the truth when it’s inconvenient, to keep faith with one another, and to measure progress in human terms. Nigeria’s future will not be built by cynicism dressed as sophistication. It will be built by brave, unreasonable optimists who insist that policy must touch the market stall, the classroom, the clinic, and the transformer on your street.
That may sound foolish. It is also how nations heal.
