Abuja – Nigeria’s economic reforms under President Bola Tinubu, popularly called Tinubunomics, were never designed to create sudden riches, the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, explains.
In a statement titled “Tinubunomics and the Arithmetic of Illusion”, Yakubu warned that much of the criticism surrounding the reforms is based on misleading numbers, not proper economic analysis.
“This is not economic analysis. It is an arithmetic illusion,” he said.
Yakubu explained that viral critiques often confuse revenue with actual cash, and borrowings with income.
Many also treat federation-wide collections as fully available to the federal government, a mistake that creates unrealistic expectations.
“Revenue is not the same as cash available to the Federal Government. Borrowing is not income; it is financing and creates future obligations,” Yakubu said.
He criticized analysts who add up tax collections, oil revenues, customs receipts, borrowing, and subsidy savings to arrive at huge figures like ₦150 trillion, ₦170 trillion, or ₦180 trillion only to ask, “Where did the money go?”
“Much of it never existed in the form being implied,” Yakubu said.
On fuel subsidies, Yakubu clarified that removing them doesn’t generate instant cash. Instead, it closes long-standing leaks in the budget, gradually freeing resources to improve fiscal discipline and support vulnerable Nigerians.
“Subsidy reform does not conjure idle cash. It closes a hole,” he explained.
Yakubu also addressed concerns about rising debt, explaining that much of the increase in naira-denominated debt comes from exchange-rate adjustments of existing foreign loans, not new borrowing.
“Treating this accounting effect as new borrowing is a category error,” he said.
The Budget Office chief said Tinubunomics is a macro-fiscal reset, not a promise of instant abundance. It aims to:
- Restore proper price signals
- Strengthen revenue administration
- Rebuild credibility
- Protect vulnerable citizens
“Accountability does not begin with social media arithmetic. It starts with audit logic; anything else is theatre,” Yakubu said.
Yakubu urged Nigerians to look beyond headline numbers and focus on how the government spends what it actually controls.
He said this approach, rather than viral figures and social media commentary, is the true measure of accountability.
