By Joseph Erunke, Abuja

The Independent Media and Policy Initiatives ,IMPI, has credited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu with engineering a sweeping economic turnaround through what it described as the deliberate deployment of “tools of economic progressivism,” lifting Nigeria from years of entrenched decadence and fiscal profligacy.

In a policy statement signed by its Chairman, Dr. Omoniyi Akinsiju, the group argued that the Tinubu administration’s reforms marked a decisive break from a past dominated by oligarchic control, wasteful subsidies, and systemic distortions.

Drawing parallels with reform cycles in the United States, IMPI noted that Nigeria, prior to May 2023, had endured prolonged periods of “decadent public values and the normalisation of profligacy in high offices.”

According to the group, the pre-reform economy was tightly controlled by a powerful network of political elites, military figures, and business magnates who cornered state resources,particularly in the oil sector,through a deeply entrenched patronage system.

The result, IMPI said, was a widening gulf between a privileged minority and millions of impoverished citizens.

By 2022, about 63 per cent of Nigerians,an estimated 133 million people,were living in multidimensional poverty.

The fuel subsidy regime, long criticised for corruption, was described as a “feeding bottle” for a select few, while multiple exchange rate windows created opportunities for “FX subsidy merchants” to exploit arbitrage between official and parallel market rates, draining public finances.

Economic power, the group said, was overwhelmingly concentrated in the petroleum industry, with access to oil revenues largely restricted to those in authority and their associates.

By the time President Tinubu assumed office, Nigeria was reportedly spending about 97 per cent of its total revenue on debt servicing,an unsustainable fiscal position IMPI characterised as “disastrous.”

The group also traced the country’s fiscal vulnerability to declining export performance after 2014. Nigeria’s crude oil and gas export value peaked at $93.89 billion in 2011, but subsequently fell into a lower range that persisted for years despite intermittent recoveries.

Against this backdrop, IMPI maintained that the Tinubu administration has “taken Nigeria out of the woods,” citing signs of macroeconomic stability and the dismantling of oligarchic strongholds as evidence of a reform-driven resurgence.

To buttress its claim of an ideology-based turnaround, the group itemised key instruments of progressivism deployed by the administration. These include sweeping fiscal and tax reforms, redistributive spending, estate and wealth taxation, labour and wealth protection measures, monetary and financial restructuring, expansive infrastructure development, and renewed public investment.

According to IMPI, the impact of these policies is already visible across critical economic indicators.

Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements surged dramatically in 2025, with the three tiers of government sharing over N33.27 trillion in the first eleven months,a 30 per cent increase over the corresponding period in 2024.

The group attributed the rise to subsidy removal and exchange rate reforms, noting record monthly allocations such as N3.64 trillion in September 2025, which significantly strengthened subnational finances.

Inflation, though still in double digits, has fallen sharply from a peak of 34.6 per cent in November 2024 to 15.10 per cent in January 2026, marking more than nine consecutive months of disinflation. IMPI said this decline has helped restore real purchasing power and stabilise business operations, especially following exchange rate unification.

Of particular significance, the group highlighted the dramatic drop in food inflation to 8.89 per cent year-on-year in January 2026,its first single-digit reading in 128 months and the lowest in 174 months. The figure represents a steep fall from 29.63 per cent recorded in January 2025, a 20.73 percentage-point decline within a year.

The January 2026 rate is the first time food inflation has dipped below 10 per cent since May 2015 and the lowest since August 2011, effectively ending more than a decade of persistent double-digit food inflation.

IMPI further pointed to a substantial narrowing of the gap between official and parallel foreign exchange markets. The spread, once as wide as 60 per cent, has reportedly shrunk to about two per cent.

As of February 24, 2026, the naira traded at approximately N1,349.24 to the dollar in the official market and between N1,355 and N1,420 in the parallel market.

In what it described as a remarkable reversal of fortunes, the group noted that the naira is currently ranked the world’s second-best performing currency this year, posting a gain of more than seven per cent against the dollar.