By Tanimu Yakubu<\/b><\/p>\n
A striking feature of Nigeria’s current economic debate is the enthusiasm with which huge numbers are circulated\u2014and the casualness with which they are assembled. Tax collections are added to oil receipts; oil receipts are added again under customs or “subsidy savings”; borrowing is treated as income; and the resulting total is presented as proof of incompetence or theft.<\/p>\n
This is not an economic analysis. It is an arithmetic illusion.<\/p>\n
At the core of most viral critiques of Tinubunomics lies a fundamental failure to distinguish between revenue, cash, and financing, and between federation-wide collections and federal budgetary resources. These are not technicalities. They are the foundation of public finance.<\/p>\n
Revenue is not the same as cash available to the Federal Government. Borrowing is not income; it is financing and creates future obligations. Federation receipts are not equivalent to what the Federal Government can spend.<\/p>\n
Once these distinctions are ignored, any number\u2014no matter how dramatic\u2014can be manufactured.<\/p>\n
The familiar pattern runs as follows. Aggregate tax collections are cited, often correctly, in gross terms. Oil revenues are then added without clarifying whether they are gross or net, federation-wide or federally retained, or whether costs, deductions, and under-recoveries have been netted off. Customs receipts are layered on, sometimes without stating whether they are already embedded in non-oil revenue totals. Borrowing is then added as though it were free money. Finally, “subsidy savings” are thrown into the mix, as if stopping a fiscal leak produces a vault of idle cash.<\/p>\n
The result is a large headline number\u2014\u20a6150 trillion, \u20a6170 trillion, \u20a6180 trillion\u2014followed by the question: where did the money go?<\/p>\n
The answer is straightforward: much of it never existed in the form being implied.<\/p>\n
Subsidy reform, for instance, does not conjure discretionary cash. It closes a hole. Under the old regime, underpricing manifested through arrears, opaque netting, and quasi-fiscal obligations. Reform first eliminates these hidden drains. The fiscal benefit appears gradually\u2014through reduced deficit pressure, better budgeting discipline, and explicit, targeted support\u2014not through a sudden pile of spendable “savings.”<\/p>\n
Debt figures are similarly abused. A significant portion of Nigeria’s recent increase in debt stock in naira terms reflects exchange-rate revaluation of existing external obligations, not fresh borrowing. When the exchange rate adjusts, the naira value of dollar-denominated debt rises automatically. Treating this accounting effect as new borrowing is a category error, not a discovery.<\/p>\n
Most persistently, federation-wide collections are presented as if they belong solely to the Federal Government. They do not. Revenues in a federation are shared, earmarked, netted, and statutorily allocated. Federal budget reality is determined by FGN retained revenue plus deficit financing, not by gross federation inflows aggregated for political effect.<\/p>\n
Tinubunomics was never a promise of instant abundance. It is a macro-fiscal reset undertaken within hard constraints: inherited debt service, FX realism, security spending, legacy arrears, and competing constitutional obligations. Its logic is structural\u2014restoring price signals, strengthening revenue administration, rebuilding credibility, and re-pricing the public balance sheet while protecting the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n
Those who insist on treating national finance as a household ledger will always find scandal where none exists. But accountability does not begin with social media addiction. It starts with audit logic.<\/p>\n
The proper way to interrogate government performance is simple: examine federal retained revenue; separate it clearly from financing; track expenditure across debt service, personnel, capital, and transfers; and then assess outputs\u2014roads built, power delivered, rail extended, schools and clinics rehabilitated.<\/p>\n
Anything else is not subject to scrutiny. It is a theatre.<\/p>\n
And no amount of theatrical arithmetic can substitute for fiscal discipline.<\/p>\n
– Yakubu is the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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