Nigeria When Economic Sabotage Is Masked As Economic Reform -By Gozie Irogboli

During the time of Buhari, the most popular word on the lips of the government agents was change. And indeed, they gave Nigeria a change but in the negative direction. They reversed the economic fortunes of Nigeria and plunged the economy into crisis. And today, under Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the refrain has shifted from change to reform. The government functionaries and their media spin masters are shouting reform. But, the questions we must ask are: Is Tinubu and his team actually carrying real economic reform? Can we classify Tinubu’s economic policies as a reform? And what direction is the so-called reform taking the country to? Let us take a peep into his policies to determine whether what he is doing can be called a reform or not. 

What Tinubu government has done in the last three years are: total removal of subsidy from petroleum product without fixing our refineries and without cushion, floating the naira, uncontrolled borrowing, and tax review. Other features of Tinubu’s economic policy include lack of fiscal discipline, off-budget expenditure and unlawful expropriation and economic repression. 

Economic reforms are about policy changes designed to make the economy more productive, efficient and stable. Reforms are introduced to remove distortions, reduce wastefulness, boost private investment, market competitiveness and economic growth, strengthen fiscal discipline, develop institutions, infrastructure, build capacity and provide social safety nets for the citizens. The overall objective being to promote sustainable development and maximize social welfare of the citizens. 

Essentially, economic reforms are programs designed to create enabling framework for economic activities to thrive. Genuine reforms have content, principles, defined goals, timelines, actionable plans and deliverables (short term and long term). Economic reforms are not ad-hoc, haphazard, self-serving, as-it-pleases-the-leader kind of programs but a comprehensive well-thought-out programs designed to improve the economic fortunes of the people. Tinubu’s so-called reform is not well spelt out. In his inaugural speech on May 29th 2023, he told Nigerian that: “subsidy is gone.” And spurred by the action of his supporters and their hear-say collaborators who hailed his reckless decision as bold and strategic, he floated the Naira under the guise of economic liberalization to unify the multiple exchange rates ostensibly to attract foreign investments thereby sending the Naira crashing like a pack of cards before other currencies. This is a pointer to the fact that implementing policies without adequate safeguards, preparations and institutional capacity is not only reckless but suicidal.  

It is obvious that Tinubu’s policy of removing subsidy on petroleum product, floating the Naira, tax review and excessive borrowing are all self-serving. The subsidy removal is not to the benefit of Nigerians. It is meant to benefit importers of petroleum products and the alleged owners of refineries abroad from where the refined products are being imported into the country. Floating the Naira for heavily import-dependent economy like Nigeria, that lacked the capacity to produce substitute for imports, without boosting local production capacity, and without regulatory interventions is dangerous. The beneficiaries of the drastic devaluation of the naira are the thieving political elites who gained artificial arbitrage by bringing in a fraction of the money they stashed abroad. And the so-called tax reform bill is fraud intended to pauperize Nigeria and exacerbate regional imbalance in distribution of tax revenue. Taxing an impoverished population without social safety benefits is extortion. It is borne out of desperation for primitive accumulation and desperation to raise more money to service debt. The policy of borrowing to finance phantom projects and accumulating debt for the unborn generation is calamitous. As at April, 2026, Nigeria’s total external debt stood at N169.28 trillion from N87.38 under Buhari. That means that in two years Tinubu has borrowed N65.9 trillion. That amount is higher than the nation’s total debt before the coming of the APC regime in 2015. That means that in three years Tinubu’s government has borrowed more than any other regime in Nigerians economic history. And he is still borrowing. At present, Nigeria’s debt-serving-to-revenue ratio is over 100%. And that is the desperation to increase the tax rate revenue as aforementioned. 

 Another form of economic sabotage and terrorism in Tinubu’s regime is his obnoxious policy of unlawful expropriation and economic repression; wherein the government uses it powers to fight others and their genuine investment for political reasons. In this regime, we have seen wanton destruction of peoples’ assets by the agents of the government. In Lagos, assets and investments of people worth trillions of naira are being destroyed on daily basis under Tinubu’s watch. In April, 2024, the Federal government of Nigeria demolished the Landmark Beach Resort on Victoria Island belonging to Paul Onwuanibe ostensibly to make way for the construction of the 700-kilometer Lagos–Calabar coastal highway. But a few weeks after the demolition, it was announced that the highway would not pass through that way. And concerned observers believe that the demolition of the multi-billion naira resort center was for personal reason. The resort center was said to be competing with the Tinubu’s Oriental Hotels and the Eko Hotel owned by Gilbert Chagoury, Tinubu’s business partner and ally. Thus, for a personal reason a tourism-boosting investment worth over $800 million that accommodated over 80 other business, employed around 4000 Nigerians and hosted up to 3 million visitors yearly has to be demolished. Destroying peoples’ sweat, property and investment because of political differences is economic sabotage, banditry and terrorism. It is worse than oil pipeline vandalism and wanton destruction of public assets. 

Furthermore, another form of economic sabotage against Nigerians and perhaps the worst that has become instituted in Tinubu’s regime is the issue of off-budget spending. Our money in trillions have been diverted from source without due process. Tinubu awarded the contract for the construction of the East-West coastal road to Hi-tech Construction Company at a whooping cost of N15 trillion and another N1.1 trillion for the rehabilitation of Apapa and Tin Can Ports without due process. The World Bank’s Nigerian Development Update (NDU), released in April reveals that of the N84 trillion earned in revenue between 2023 and 2025 over N34 trillion representing about 41% did not flow into the federation account and were diverted and treated as what is classified as first-line-charges. In its feeble defense after the public outrage the federal government through Taiwo Oyedele, the Finance Minister said the funds were not diverted but spent on statutory transfers, security-related expenditures, savings and investments and cost-of-collection charges, refunds to ministries departments and agencies (MDAs), transfers and interventions benefiting subnational governments. And the question is: are these expenditure sub-heads and items listed by the minister exempted from appropriation and legislative scrutiny?

And as if to corroborate the World Bank’s report, the recent International Monetary Funds (IMF) Article IV Consultation report released earlier in the month reveals that the sum of N8.83 trillion spending which is about 2% of the nation’s GDP was not captured in the 2026 budget. This is a monumental fraud. Taking our oil money from source without appropriation is equivalent to resource theft and it is worse than oil bunkering and therefore it is economic sabotage. It is another form of economic brigandage and banditry.

Added to these are the cases of profligacy, malversation and arbitrary use of public funds to finance personal projects. In January, 2024 Tinubu spent $2.7 million to hire a US PR firm to lobby to suppress his certificate and drug scandal cases. In December, 2025, another whooping sum of $9.5 million was spent to hire another PR firm to lobby to cover the genocide narrative in Nigeria. 

Again, it was reported in the news earlier in the year that the APC governors under Hope Uzodinma have set aside a humongous sum N800 from their state coffers for the purpose of sponsoring the reelection bid of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In the 2026 budget, N8.05 billion was voted to renovate churches and mosques, N6.4 billion voted for world cup qualifying matches when Nigeria has already crashed out of the world cup since last year. Another sum of N22.15 billion appropriated to renovate 106 royal palaces across the nation. It also revealed that a number of items amounting to a staggering amount of N210 billion are duplicated in the 2026 budget. And even there is an allocation of N1.3 billion naira for an agency the government itself said does not exist. An independent investigation reveals that padding and insertion into the 2026 federal budget amounted to a staggering sum of N6.93 trillion. Since the coming of Tinubu, the Federal budget has been manipulated to serve interest other than the nation. For instance, it was reported that the capital vote in the 2024 and 2025 federal budget have not been released. It is generally believed that the funds are being stashed away for vote buying (something the APC government has institutionalized in the polity) during the forthcoming general election. Using state funds to sponsor personal ambition is corruption and economic sabotage. This is corruption and economic sabotage in egregious degree.

From the foregoing, it is self-evident that in Tinubu’s regime, there is outright lack of fiscal discipline: what we see is profligacy and wastefulness. Public finance is anchored on probity, transparency and accountability and all that is lacking in Tinubu’s regime. Rather than invest in infrastructure and economic development, Tinubu would prefer to fritter billions of tax-payers’ money on propaganda and personal agenda. And rather than fight insecurity and terrorism to ensure peace for economic activities to thrive, Tinubu would prefer to use our common wealth to fight opposition, suppress civil advocacy and repress perceived political enemies. 

Taken together, it is not difficult to see that there is no reforms whatsoever under this regime. What we have is state control, exploitation, unbridled corruption, systemic looting and economic strangulation and outright sabotage. Tinubu’s government has made the Nigerian economic environment toxic through its myopic and obnoxious polices. The tariff on everything has soared very high and consequently, the cost of living and cost of doing business in Nigeria have become unbearably very high. Families are writhing in pain as firms are closing and moving to safer environment. The only thriving industry under Tinubu is corruption and looting of state treasury. We are not swayed by the spurious claim by the government propagandists that the FDI is increasing. The claim is not backed by any verifiable evidence. In reality, no genuine investor would want to invest in an environment with weak institutions, weak and deplorable economic infrastructure, insecurity and political turbulence. Only rogue investors like those doing illegal mining, sponsoring banditry would invest in an atmosphere fraught with uncertainty and volatility. It is public knowledge that foreign countries are warning their nationals to beware of visiting Nigeria because of insecurity, political instability and uncertainty.

The reality is that the Nigerian economy is officially sabotaged and this is the result: Nigeria has retained his position as the poverty capital of the world with 130 million living in multidimensional poverty, 40 million children out of school, high and rising inflation, heavy debt burden, high and rising youth unemployment, increase in crime and social vices…Yes, the economy is sabotaged through wrong policies, through misappropriation and misallocation of funds, off-budget expenditure, profligacy and wastefulness, lack of transparency and accountability, borrowing to finance phantom projects, using state funds to finance personal and primordial agenda, bias and exclusion in citing critical economic infrastructure, unlawful expropriation and repression, using propaganda and fake statistics to confuse members of the public…

Thus, it does not sound cynical to state that what Tinubu’s government is doing is pure economic sabotage rather than reform. The truth is not difficult to see here if we understand the meaning of economic sabotage. Many conflate what is going on in this regime with reform because of the false narratives from the government propagandists and those profiting from the flawed policies. And secondly, many could not imagine that government can sabotage the economy because they associate economic sabotage mostly with infrastructure vandalism, illegal mining, currency counterfeiting, money laundry, smuggling etc. But, it is much more than that. Economic sabotage is about illicit actions or policies undertaken by the individuals, criminal syndicates or political actors to disrupt, undermine or profit from the destabilization of a nation’s economy. So, the policy of economic strangulation and mass impoverishment of the Tinubu’s regime is pure economic sabotage.

And without equivocation, I must state that what Tinubu is doing is pure economic sabotage masked in the guise of economic reform. And his intention is clear. It is not just greed and or his primitive accumulation tendencies; it is politics. It is power game. He wants to retain power at all costs. He wants to maintain his vise grip on the nation’s economy and power structure. He wants to amass too much wealth to be able buy anyone who would want to stand on his way or stop him. In the same way, he wants to create poverty for the people in order to be able to buy them during election time. 

Undoubtedly, Tinubu is playing politics with the Nigerian economy. His strangulating economic policies are aimed at producing an impoverished population that could be manipulated or bought for a pittance during elections. That is why his wife, Remi Tinubu wants the youths in a perpetual state of poverty and dependency as fryers of akara, corn and kulikuli. If after three years all he could give Nigerians is pain and penury then his policies have failed. He does not need a life time to work to rejuvenate the economy. It is either he does not have ideas on how to improve the economy or he lacks the will power to work for the well-being of those he has sworn on oath to protect. And so, I am joining my voice with those of millions of others in saying that Tinubu must go!

Gozie Irogboli 
(goziei@yahoo.com)
An economist, banker, a novelist and public policy analyst