Tinubunomics debate distorted by misleading fiscal calculations — Budget DG

By : Terhemba Daka

Date: 4 January 2026 3:02pm WAT

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Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi is the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation

Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi is the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation

The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, has dismissed what he described as “theatrical arithmetic” in public critiques of Tinubunomics, arguing that much of the outrage surrounding Nigeria’s fiscal numbers is based on a misunderstanding of basic public finance principles.

Yakubu said the circulation of large headline figures purporting to show massive government revenues often results from the improper aggregation of unrelated items, including tax collections, oil receipts, borrowing, and so-called subsidy savings. According to the DG in a statement made available to State House Correspondents on Sunday, “such presentations amount to arithmetic illusion rather than serious economic analysis.” He explained that many critics fail to distinguish between revenue, cash, and financing, as well as between federation-wide collections and the actual resources available to the Federal Government.

“Revenue is not the same as cash available to the Federal Government. Borrowing is not income; it is financing that creates future obligations. Federation receipts are not equivalent to what the Federal Government can spend,” Yakubu stated. He noted that once these distinctions are ignored, virtually any dramatic figure can be manufactured and used to fuel public outrage, even when the implied money never existed in spendable form. Yakubu said a common pattern in such critiques involves citing aggregate tax collections in gross terms, adding oil revenues without clarifying whether they are net or gross, and layering customs receipts that may already be embedded in non-oil revenue figures. Borrowing, he added, is often presented as free income, while subsidy reform is portrayed as having generated vast pools of idle cash.

“The result is a large headline number – N150 trillion, N170 trillion, N180 trillion – followed by the question: where did the money go? The answer is straightforward: much of it never existed in the form being implied,” he said. On fuel subsidy reform, Yakubu explained that the policy does not instantly produce discretionary cash but rather closes long-standing fiscal leaks that previously manifested through arrears, opaque netting arrangements, and quasi-fiscal obligations. Any fiscal benefit from subsidy reform, he said, emerges gradually through reduced deficit pressure, improved budgeting discipline, and targeted social support, not through a sudden accumulation of spendable savings. The Budget Office boss also addressed concerns about Nigeria’s rising debt profile, noting that a significant portion of the increase in naira-denominated debt reflects exchange-rate revaluation of existing external obligations rather than new borrowing. “When the exchange rate adjusts, the naira value of dollar-denominated debt rises automatically. Treating this accounting effect as fresh borrowing is a category error,” Yakubu said.

The Budget Office chief further criticised the practice of presenting federation-wide revenues as though they belong exclusively to the Federal Government, stressing that Nigeria’s federal system requires revenues to be shared, earmarked, and statutorily allocated among the three tiers of government. He said federal budget reality is determined by federally retained revenue plus deficit financing, not by gross federation inflows aggregated for political effect. Yakubu said Tinubunomics was never presented as a promise of instant prosperity but as a macro-fiscal reset designed to address structural distortions under difficult constraints, including inherited debt service obligations, foreign exchange adjustments, security spending, and legacy arrears.

He added that meaningful accountability should focus on examining federally retained revenue, separating it clearly from financing, tracking expenditures across key categories, and assessing tangible outputs such as infrastructure delivery and social services. “Accountability does not begin with social-media arithmetic. It begins with audit logic,” Yakubu said.

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