Jide Ojo
President Bola Tinubu has eight-point priority areas as enunciated in his 80-page Renewed Hope Agenda. They are: Reform the Economy for Sustained Inclusive Growth; Strengthen National Security for Peace and Prosperity; Boost Agriculture to Achieve Food Security; Unlock Energy and Natural Resources for Sustainable Development; and Enhance Infrastructure and Transportation as Enablers of Growth. Others include: Focus on Education, Health, and Social Investment as Essential Pillars of Development; Accelerate Diversification through Industrialisation, Digitisation, Creative Arts, Manufacturing & Innovation; and Improve Governance for Effective Service Delivery. From the aforementioned, it is obvious that the president has bias for the economy. Little wonder he prioritised what he called economic restructuring in the last two years. I call that ‘Tinubunomics’.
From the day of his inauguration on May 29, 2023, Tinubu left no one in doubt about the direction his government will go when he said, “Petrol subsidy is gone!”. He later followed that up with the floating of the naira, our national currency. To the best of my knowledge, Nigeria never had a cabinet that is as large as that of the incumbent president, with about 50 ministers and establishment of new ministries, departments and agencies, some of which include the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, Ministry of Livestock Development, Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, and Ministry of Steel Development.
President Bola Tinubu has recorded a lot of achievements in the area of economy in the last two years. In terms of bricks and mortar, there have been several completed roads and bridges, especially in the Federal Capital Territory and Lagos. Nairametrics, in its March 31, 2025 edition, reported that Tinubu’s administration has prioritised road infrastructure, accelerating existing projects and initiating new ones to enhance connectivity, trade, and regional development. Summary of 13 key road projects are: Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Road: Originally awarded in 2017, now revitalised with N740.79 billion in funding. Completion set for 2026; Ninth Mile-Oturkpo-Makurdi Road; Sokoto-Badagry Highway: A 1,068km north-south link with a rail line in the median; construction began in October 2024; Abuja-Lokoja-Benin Road: Undergoing dualisation with concrete technology, re-awarded in 2024 with N305 billion funding; and Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway (Phase 1): A 47.7km section started in March 2024, integrating rail transport; full highway spans 700km.
Others include: Enugu-Onitsha Expressway being reconstructed under MTN’s Tax Credit Scheme; 50–70% complete, with a May 2026 deadline; Benin-Asaba Superhighway: A PPP-funded 125km highway with solar lighting, launched in March 2025, with a 30-month timeline; Oyo-Ogbomoso Road: Re-awarded in February 2025 to JRB Construction for N147.89 billion to boost regional connectivity; Bode Saadu-Kaima-Kosubosu Road: A 130km project in Kwara, funded by BUA Group, designed for long-term durability; Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway: Ongoing work on the 56.1km Umuahia-Aba section, with completion targeted for June 2025; Second Niger Bridge Access Road: A 17.55km road linking the bridge to key transport corridors, started in March 2025; Lagos-Ibadan Expressway nearing completion, with tolling planned after Phase 1 to ensure maintenance funding; and Bodo-Bonny Road: Includes 13 bridges; cost revised to N280 billion, now scheduled for completion.
In February 2024, the president signed the Electricity Act (Amendment) Bill, 2024, into law. The bill addresses the development and environmental concerns of host communities and sets aside five percent of the actual annual operating expenditures of power-generating companies from the preceding year for the development of their respective host communities. The bill further provides that the funds set aside for the development of host communities will be received, managed, and administered for infrastructure development in the host communities by a reputable Trustee/Manager to be jointly appointed by the respective GENCO and their host community.
Under this administration, all the six geopolitical zones now have development commissions that are aimed at making development initiatives percolate to the grassroots through pro-people and pro-poor projects and programmes. Tinubu’s game changer is the four tax reforms bill sent to the National Assembly in October 2024. They are the Nigeria Tax Bill; the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill; the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill; and the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill. The Senate passed the bill last week, and a conference committee to harmonise the versions passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives has been set up. I am sure a clean copy may be sent to the president for assent before this May 29. There is said to be a lot of benefits inherent in the new tax laws.
It is reported that the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, has established three funds totalling N200,000,000,000 (Two Hundred Billion Naira) to support businesses across Nigeria: The Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme; The FGN MSME Intervention Fund; and the FGN Manufacturing Sector Fund. The Bank of Industry has been appointed as the executing agency of the funds, vested with the responsibility for its day-to-day administration. An online source said BOI has disbursed N22 billion of the N200 billion support fund to MSMEs. The restreaming of Port Harcourt and Warri refineries in December 2024, as well as the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, are some of Tinubu’s economic achievements in the last two years. It is noteworthy that the national minimum wage was increased from N30,000 to N70,000 since July 2024.
On the flip side, much as the economy handlers of the country will want the citizens to laud them for the purported economic growth, it is noteworthy that lives of average Nigerians have been worsened by this government. Nigerians are experiencing higher cost of living rather than higher standard of living. Inflation, unemployment, and poverty are on the increase. Headline inflation in March 2025 is 24.23%, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. This newspaper, in its May 4, 2025 (online edition), reported that the World Bank has disclosed that the poverty rate among Nigeria’s rural population has reached an alarming 75.5 per cent, highlighting deepening inequality and widespread economic hardship across the country. According to the World Bank’s latest April 2025 Poverty and Equity Brief for Nigeria, rural dwellers are overwhelmingly bearing the brunt of economic stagnation, inflation, and structural challenges that have characterised the country’s growth trajectory in recent years. The data, derived from Nigeria’s most recent nationally representative surveys, show that while 41.3 per cent of the urban population lives below the poverty line, the figure for rural Nigeria is almost double.
According to a Development Economist, Prof. Dudley Seers, in any country where poverty, unemployment, and inflation are on the increase, there is no development. Imagine the cost-of-living crises many Nigerians now face. Many of us are heavily indebted and finding it extremely difficult to pay our bills. Energy cost has hit the roof with petrol and electricity price hikes, as well as the recent increase in the telecommunication tariff. These price increases, coupled with over 40 per cent devaluation of the value of the naira, have made life unbearable for most Nigerians. These spikes in the cost of living have made the new minimum wage of N70,000 worthless. It therefore behoves President Tinubu to find creative ways of ameliorating the suffering of Nigerian masses.
X: @jideojong
