By OBI DAVIES

₦30.64tn Spent in 31 Months: How Tinubu’s Reforms Reshaped Federal Government Finances

THE Federal Government says it spent ₦30.64 trillion on additional expenses between June 2023 and December 2025, as President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms reshaped public finances.

Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed the figure in Abuja while presenting the government’s Nigeria’s Reform Scorecard: The Benefits, Costs and Harms Prevented.

The report offers the administration’s assessment of what its economic reforms have generated, what they have cost and what the government believes Nigeria might have faced without them.

At the centre of the presentation was the removal of the petrol subsidy and the reform of the foreign exchange market.

According to Oyedele, those measures generated ₦15.8 trillion in additional resources for the Federation between June 2023 and December 2025.

The money, however, did not belong exclusively to the Federal Government.

The Federation distributed ₦10.4 trillion of the amount to states and local governments. The Federal Government retained ₦5.4 trillion.

That additional revenue formed only part of the resources available to the Federal Government during the period.

The government also recorded ₦3.1 trillion in additional independent revenue, mainly from remittances by government-owned entities.

It borrowed another ₦11.9 trillion.

Together, those sources generated ₦20.4 trillion in additional resources for the Federal Government.

Yet the government spent considerably more than that amount on additional obligations.

Wages Took the Largest Share

Wage-related expenditure accounted for ₦9.39 trillion, making it the largest component of the additional spending.

The figure covered wage adjustments, the new national minimum wage and allowances for public servants.

Oyedele argued that the spending demonstrated that subsidy reform was not simply designed to increase government revenue.

The Federal Government received ₦5.4 trillion from the reported subsidy savings, but wage-related expenditure alone exceeded that amount.

The minister said the reforms also sought to address what he described as entrenched weaknesses in the former fuel subsidy and foreign exchange systems.

External debt service consumed almost the same amount.

The Federal Government spent ₦9.37 trillion servicing external debt between June 2023 and December 2025.

The sharp depreciation of the naira increased the local-currency cost of servicing foreign-denominated obligations.

A dollar-denominated debt, for example, requires considerably more naira when the exchange rate moves from around ₦460 to more than ₦1,400 to the dollar.

Infrastructure & Electricity

Strategic infrastructure accounted for another ₦6.47 trillion.

The spending reflects the administration’s emphasis on infrastructure as part of its economic recovery strategy.

Electricity subsidies also placed a substantial burden on public finances.

The government spent ₦3.14 trillion on additional electricity subsidy costs.

Domestic debt service required a further ₦1.24 trillion, partly because higher interest rates increased borrowing costs.

Other expenses included ₦423.8 billion in social welfare transfers and ₦419.1 billion for Federal Capital Territory development, the Ecological Fund and natural-resource investments.

Another ₦201.26 billion represented higher naira costs associated with foreign obligations.

Borrowing Remained Central

The composition of the additional resources also reveals a significant dependence on borrowing.

Of the ₦20.4 trillion in additional resources, borrowing accounted for 58 per cent.

Subsidy savings contributed 27 per cent.

Other revenue accounted for the remaining 15 per cent.

That structure raises an important fiscal question: how sustainable is a reform programme when a significant portion of the resources used to finance new expenditure comes from additional borrowing?

The government argues that the borrowing supported critical obligations while reforms stabilised the wider fiscal environment.

The Subsidy Savings Question

Oyedele also sought to clarify what the government means by “subsidy savings”.

He said Nigerians should not imagine a separate account into which ₦15.8 trillion accumulated after the subsidy removal.

Instead, the reforms increased the resources available to the Federation through higher revenue collections.

States received about ₦6.5 trillion of the reported savings.

Local governments received approximately ₦3.9 trillion.

The Federal Government received ₦5.4 trillion.

The lower tiers of government therefore received almost twice the amount retained by the Federal Government.

Government Points to Macro-Economic Gains

Beyond spending figures, the scorecard attempts to measure the broader effects of the reforms.

The government examined 25 indicators covering fiscal sustainability, external stability, investment, social impact, growth and productivity.

It also compared actual outcomes with a “no-reform” scenario based on the economic trajectory before May 2023.

The government said 27 states could not reliably pay salaries in May 2023.

It now says none faces the same problem.

The administration estimates that at least 30 states could have struggled to meet salary obligations by 2026 if the pre-reform trajectory had continued.

The government also points to a sharp reduction in the gap between official and parallel foreign exchange rates.

According to the scorecard, the premium fell from more than 60 per cent before the reforms to below five per cent.

The government estimates that the gap could have exceeded 150 per cent without the reforms.

The Cost Nigerians Have Felt

The administration has not denied that the reforms imposed substantial costs.

The Monetary Policy Rate rose from 18.5 per cent in May 2023 to 26.5 per cent.

Petrol prices also moved from about ₦185 per litre before subsidy removal to between ₦1,100 and ₦1,400 during the period covered by the assessment.

For households, those changes translated into higher transport, food and living costs.

Oyedele acknowledged that reality.

He argued, however, that maintaining the previous subsidy arrangement could have created even greater distortions, including fuel shortages and substantially higher black-market prices.

Household Recovery Remains the Test

The most difficult question now concerns whether macroeconomic improvement can translate into better household welfare.

Food inflation fell from the government’s May 2023 baseline of 24.82 per cent to 17.52 per cent in June 2026.

Headline inflation also declined from 22.41 per cent at the May 2023 baseline to 15.91 per cent in June 2026, according to the figures cited by the minister.

Yet lower inflation does not mean lower prices.

Prices can continue rising even when the rate of increase slows.

That distinction remains crucial for millions of Nigerians struggling with food, transport, housing and other basic expenses.

Oyedele therefore described poverty reduction and household welfare as unfinished areas of the reform programme.

Reserves & Growth

The government also highlighted stronger external reserves.

Gross foreign exchange reserves reportedly increased from about $35 billion to $52.5 billion.

Net reserves rose from approximately $3 billion to $34.8 billion.

The stock market also expanded sharply, with market capitalisation rising from about ₦31 trillion to roughly ₦150 trillion.

Real GDP growth strengthened from 2.31 per cent at the May 2023 baseline to 3.89 per cent.

The government further cited Nigeria’s improved international financial standing, including an S&P Global sovereign rating upgrade and Nigeria’s exit from international financial-monitoring lists.

The Next Phase

The administration now faces the harder part of the reform process.

It must convert macroeconomic stability into improvements that households can see and feel.

Oyedele said the government would continue implementing the Nigeria Tax Act while pursuing reforms to budgeting, public reporting and accountability.

It also intends to increase the tax-to-GDP ratio and maintain a unified foreign exchange market.

The government plans further agricultural interventions, expanded cash transfers and other measures aimed at reducing the pressure on vulnerable households.

More than 1.5 million students, it said, are already benefiting from the National Education Loan Fund.

The administration also points to the increase in the national minimum wage from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000 and improved payment of salaries and pensions.

Ultimately, the reform scorecard is not simply a record of money raised and spent.

It is an argument about whether the disruption caused by the reforms has produced a stronger economic foundation.

The ₦30.64 trillion expenditure figure captures the scale of the fiscal adjustments. The challenge now is whether those adjustments can produce durable growth, stronger public finances and a meaningful improvement in living standards.

That will determine whether the reforms are remembered primarily for the hardship they imposed or for the economic restructuring the government says they achieved.