By DAVID ADONRI 

Eight wasted years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure which preceded current democratic administration demonstrates how an uninspiring, unenterprising and incapable leadership can ruin the prospects of a developing economy. All socioeconomic indicators deteriorated under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari’s disastrous administration. Citizens were greatly relieved by his departure and looked forward with optimism to the commencement of a new administration with hope that it will not be worse than the outgoing one.

Two years ago, President Buhari’s successor, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office with a big bang. At his swearing in ceremony, he rolled out two audacious economic reform policies, the likes of which were unprecedented in recent history of Nigeria. Subsequently, the President confessed that the two policies which were the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the Naira were not really part of his prepared inaugural speech but he was spurred by patriotic zeal to commence the reforms with immediate effect. During the build up to his election, President Tinubu had floated several grandiose ideas which may be discountenanced as mere campaign rhetoric. 

However, from the inauguration when his social contract with Nigerians began, his utterances became sacrosanct. The key deliverables he promised on inauguration as his administration’s objectives included the following: 

1) Reformation of security doctrine and architecture.

2) Championing a credit culture.

3) Targeting a higher GDP growth rate (six percent per annum and $1 trillion by 2030)

4) Stimulating the economy without engendering inflation.

5) Promoting domestic manufacturing.

6) Lessening import dependency.

7) More accessible and affordable electricity.

8) Addressing multiple taxation and various investment inhibitions.

9) Ensuring repatriation of dividends and profits by foreign investors and enterprises.

10) Creating one million jobs in the digital economy.

11) Undertaking labour intensive infrastructural improvements.

12) Promoting Commodities Exchange Boards. 

13) Development of national agricultural produce storage facilities.

14) Creating agricultural hubs.

15) Modernising livestock agriculture.

16) Building more roads, rail and ports infrastructure.

17) Unification of exchange rate.

18) Reduction of interest rates to increase investments and consumer spending.

19) Revision of the harsh currency redesign swap programme.

Upon resumption, the petroleum sector attracted President Tinubu’s attention for some reasons. First, the sector generates the highest foreign income for the economy which presents it as a low hanging fruit he could harvest to eliminate hard currency scarcity. Secondly, the ubiquitous connection of the petroleum sector to virtually every aspect of the economy meant that a restoration of firm order there could be catalytic to overall economic revival. 

President Tinubu himself is also vast and experienced in the petroleum industry, being an ex-principal staff of Exxon-Mobil. It was therefore not surprising that his first policy action which was the removal of fuel subsidy and his subsequent engagement with NNPCL to amend their commercial strategies, and the directive to the military to wipe out crude oil theft, all targeted reformation of the petroleum sector. 

Two years have passed since the policies were rolled out. What is the mid-term assessment like? There were positive and negative impacts. On the positive side, the petroleum industry reform has facilitated the availability of petroleum products and eliminated fuel consumption subsidy, a menace that had haunted the financial health of the federal government for decades. On the flip side, as a result of the removal of fuel subsidy, the pump price of Petroleum products skyrocketed, aggravating inflation. Gasoline rose from N185/Lt in May 2023 to about N1,230/Lt in April 2025 before moderating to about N950/Lt this month. To mitigate the price surge on gasoline price, the President initiated a programme on Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, as an alternative source of fuel for vehicles. Also, due to  the Petroleum sector reform, the price of cooking gas ballooned and remains above N1,000 per kg. The President’s measures to curb Crude oil theft enabled production to rise from 1.10 million barrels/Day when he took office to 1.65 million barrels/Day as at April 2025.

Further to President Tinubu’s speedy policy intervention in the energy sector, was his swift assent to the bill seeking to reform the electric power industry which was neglected by his immediate predecessor. The Electricity Act 2023 moved electric power from the exclusive list to the concurrent list. With the new Act, states and local governments can now enact their own electricity generation, transmission and distribution Laws. Lagos State government took advantage of this enablement to enact its own Law in 2024 and followed it up with an Electricity Plan to facilitate the supply of 4,000 megawatts as preliminary target. 

Current transmission capacity in Nigeria is about 5,000 MW, while peak generation is about 11,000 MW. The supply gap in public supply of electricity in Nigeria is estimated to be about 200,000 MW. Shortage of electric power supply continues with unrelenting intensity, complicated by frequent collapse of the national grid under President Tinubu’s administration despite reforms and huge increase in tariffs. So far, neither is electricity reasonably accessible nor affordable as promised by the President. 

In two years of this administration,  infrastructural transformation remains elusive. Infrastructure development strategy appears to replicate the footsteps of President Buhari who was highly limited in his understanding of infrastructure. In Buhari’s estimation, infrastructure was just roads, rail and ports. These are secondary infrastructure or outputs that are built from primary infrastructure.

 Throughout his woeful tenure as president, Buhari failed to cause the development of the following industries which constitute the primary infrastructural base or bedrock of a productive economy that is built to last: 1) STEM Education; 2) Mining industry; 3) Metallurgical industry; 4) Tools, Machine Making and Equipment industry; 5) Electric power industry; 6) Energy industry and 7) Chemical industry. 

Indepth examination of the National Development Plan (NDP 2021 – 2025) formulated by President Buhari showed that his programme for infrastructure development lacked strategic foresight. Nobody seems to know the fate of the N15 trillion ($36 billion) Infrastructure development fund company, INFRACO, set under him. Perhaps it has gone into oblivion. President Tinubu has so far not demonstrated any trait to signal a departure from his predecessor’s strategy errors in infrastructure development. 

While welcoming the recent action taken by FGN to make technical and vocational secondary education free, the study of STEM related courses at the tertiary level should similarly be made free. Without a firm foundation of STEM education and engineering infrastructure (heavy industrial base), I wonder how the President’s promise to promote domestic manufacturing and create one million jobs in the digital economy would materialise. The so much orchestrated 90,000 km of fiberoptic cable network planned to serve as the backbone of internet infrastructure by FGN to boost the country’s digital economy is yet to be constructed although, mobilisation effort has started.

Contrary to President Tinubu’s promise to stimulate the economy without engendering inflation, under the old method of computing the Consumer Price Index, CPI, headline inflation rate galloped from 22.22 per cent in May 2023 to 34.80 per cent in December 2024 but fell sharply to 24.48 per cent in January 2025 after a contentious rebasing methodology adopted by NBS. Headline inflation rate was said to have further declined to 23.71 per cent in April 2025 without convincing evidence on ground to justify the moderation. 

Similarly, in a move that beats every imagination, through a new methodology for measuring unemployment rate, the figure was forcefully crashed from 33 per cent in May 2023 to 4.3 per cent in June 2024. There is a strong suspicion brewing amongst analysts that there could be some tinkering with statistics to mask the precarious realities on ground as the official inflation and unemployment rates are too good to be believed. Remember that the President once said that “Na statistics we go chop?” 

Economic watchers are waiting to see the magic that will be done to pull down the inflation rate to 15 per cent at 2025 year end as projected in the 2025 budget. In two years of President Tinubu’s administration, Nigeria’s public debt has doubled from N77 trillion inherited in May 2023 from President Buhari, a leader regarded as a debt merchant, to N145 trillion as at December 2024 (DMO). The escalation in debt can be traced to the continuation of deficit budgeting and initial reckless borrowing through Ways and Means. It is inconceivable that public debt continues to mount in spite of the savings and inflows to government coffers arising from the removal of fuel subsidy, floating of the Naira and increase in crude oil production. From facts and figures, public debt position has worsened thus constituting a worrisome threat to financial stability and none inflationary growth of the economy.

President Tinubu started his monetary reforms at the Central Bank of Nigeria by swiftly taking out the embattled Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who put the country through agony and misery on several occasions. While the President deserves commendation for the unification of the exchange rate, revision of the harsh currency redesign swap programme and repatriation of trapped foreign investor’s funds, economic realities continues to thwart his promise to reduce interest rate in order to increase consumer spending and investments. 

In May 2023, when he took office, Monetary Policy Rate, MPR, was 18.5 per cent. In the last Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, meeting held on May 20, 2025, MPR  was 27.5 per cent as their tightening of monetary policy continued with undiminished intensity. This hawkish state of monetary policy appears to contradict the President’s promise to champion a credit culture when cost of credit has become unaffordable and also his promise to promote agricultural and manufacturing production when the benchmark interest rate is so high. 

Although the exchange rate has been unified, it has come at a great cost to consumers. The President started his tenure in May 2023 when the exchange rate was N465/$ in the official market and N740/$ in the Parallel market. Now, the exchange rate hovers around N1,600/$. The President succeeded in arresting the free fall of the Naira witnessed at the twilight of President Muhammadu Buhari’s disastrous administration but the currency’s massive depreciation has fueled inflation. Contrary to expectation that there will be a gradual appreciation of the Naira upon commencement of domestic refining of crude oil, petroleum products importation continues to mount ferocious pressure on the value of Naira. It is ironic that CBN is yet to organise the Foreign Exchange Market to a level where the market mechanism reigns supreme. Allocative efficiency of the market may have improved but its transparency remains in doubt. That CBN continues its habit of only selling rather than being a seller and buyer means that the foreign exchange market is yet to be properly constituted. 

After President Tinubu floated the Naira, banks began to swim in an unprecedented foreign exchange windfall while the balance sheet of several enterprises in the real productive sector experienced damages inflicted by foreign exchange losses. The situation had elevated banks to the surplus end of the economy at the expense of the real productive sector. It therefore came as a surprise when the President’s administration directed banks that were already over capitalised by the FX windfall to undergo a recapitalization exercise using parameters that were ingenious. With the ongoing exercise and prohibitive interest rate, a crowding out effect preventing production from accessing financial capital has been inadvertently unleashed on the real sector. Since the huge capital deficiency and under-utilisation that underpins the economy’s supply gap inundated the real productive sector, why was a major monetary policy misdirected to where it was not necessary. There is suspicion that the policy is an unorthodox strategy to further contract money supply amidst the continuation of expansionary fiscal policy of government which fuels inflation. 

Notwithstanding the unnecessary banking recapitalisation exercise which many consider as a misfired macroeconomic policy tantamount to a mis-allocation of capital resources in the economy, one laudable promise that the president has fulfilled is the comprehensive tax reform policy. If allowed to materialize, it will certainly modernize the country’s outdated tax system, address multiple taxation and boost tax revenue. Although the banking recapitalisation exercise is a misfired policy, its collateral impact on the Capital Market has been phenomenal. It has driven up activities in the primary market to levels unseen except just before the Global Meltdown in 2008 thus deepening the market with subsidiary issues. Together with other macroeconomic policies of the President which resonated well with investors, the secondary market has soared as a profitable, liquid and safe investment outlet. 

On the last trading day which was May 26, 2023 before President Tinubu’s tenure started, the All Share Index, ASI, of NGX was 52,973.88, a Year-To-Date appreciation of 3.36 per cent. Riding just on the President’s policy pronouncements, ASI took a quantum leap, appreciating by 45.4 per cent to close the year at 74,502.58. Nobody could have thought in his wildest imagination that ASI will fly over 100,000 to the current figure of 109,028.62. President Tinubu inherited a total market capitalisation of N52.215 trillion in May 2023. He has doubled it to N119.58 trillion as at 23rd May 2025, a feat that is praiseworthy. With the signing of the Investment and Securities Act 2024 into Law by the President, the regulatory environment for making the Nigerian Capital Market safe and wide has been further strengthened.

President Tinubu’s promise to grow the economy by six per cent per annum in order to realise a GDP target of $1 trillion by 2030 is yet to gather momentum. The highest GDP growth that he has attained was the 3.84 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2024 which many analysts consider as an inflationary growth akin to a motion without movement. Despite his strenuous efforts to meet the growth rate as promised, some fiscal policies remain inimical to trade facilitation as they are geared mainly towards revenue generation. 

Additionally, a major sectoral driver of growth, the agrarian economy, has been battered by worsening farm insecurity. The reformation of Nigeria’s security doctrine and architecture promised by the President remains at the realm of conjecture. Rather than devolution of security management to various tiers of government, the recent creation of a 130,000 man strong National Forest Guard Corps does not appear to address the elimination of ungoverned spaces in the country. There are four major pressure points on the socio-economic well-being of Nigeria. In order of menace, they are as follows: 1) Insecurity; 2) Import dependency; 3) Population explosion; 4) Public debt time-bomb. 

As the President embarks on the second half of his tenure, he can keep hope alive by confronting these challenges squarely. 

*Adonri is Vice Chairman, Highcap Securities