Nigeria, May 5 -- The incumbent Federal Government is wont to make a song and dance of its reform credentials. Of late, it has been all about how smitten the international community is by these reforms - never mind that a growing domestic cohort chafes at them. Most other times, government's spokespersons advert attention to how brave the Tinubu administration was to roll back the subsidy schemes in both the foreign exchange and domestic petrol markets. Against the backdrop of the pussyfooting by its predecessors around both these reforms, the Tinubu government's shills make a persuasive case.

History, however, has more than one way of being explained. Its consequences, not so. In the case of the Tinubu government's storytelling around i...