The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, yesterday dismissed the “theatrical arithmetic” of the criticism of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms (Tinubunomics).
In a statement, he 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.
He said: “Such presentations amount to arithmetic illusion rather than serious economic analysis.” Yakubu added: “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.”
According to him, many critics fail to distinguish between revenue, cash, and financing, as well as between federation-wide collections and the actual resources available to the government. The DG said: “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. “Once these distinctions are ignored, any number—no matter how dramatic—can be manufactured. “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. “‘Subsidy savings’ are thrown into the mix as if stopping a fiscal leak produces a vault 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. “Subsidy reform, for instance, does not conjure discretionary cash. It closes a hole.
Under the old regime, underpricing manifested through arrears, opaque netting, and qualifiable obligations. “Reform first eliminates these hidden drains.
The fiscal benefit appears gradually—through reduced deficit pressure, better budgeting discipline, and explicit, targeted support—not through a sudden pile of spendable ‘savings’.” He added: “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. “Federal budget reality is determined by the government retained revenue plus deficit financing, not by gross federation inflows aggregated for political effect.”
