This is not an economic analysis. It is an arithmetic illusion.

At the core of most viral critiques of Tinubunomics lies a fundamental failure to distinguish between revenue, cash, and financing, and between federation-wide collections and federal budgetary resources. These are not technicalities. They are the foundation of public finance.

Revenue is not the same as cash available to the Federal Government. Borrowing is not income; it is financing and creates future obligations. Federation receipts are not equivalent to what the Federal Government can spend.

Once these distinctions are ignored, any number—no matter how dramatic—can be manufactured.

The familiar pattern runs as follows. Aggregate tax collections are cited, often correctly, in gross terms. Oil revenues are then added without clarifying whether they are gross or net, federation-wide or federally retained, or whether costs, deductions, and under-recoveries have been netted off. Customs receipts are layered on, sometimes without stating whether they are already embedded in non-oil revenue totals. Borrowing is then added as though it were free money. Finally, “subsidy savings” are thrown into the mix, as if stopping a fiscal leak produces a vault of idle cash.

Those who insist on treating national finance as a household ledger will always find scandal where none exists.

The result is a large headline number—₦150 trillion, ₦170 trillion, ₦180 trillion—followed by the question: where did the money go?

The answer is straightforward: much of it never existed in the form being implied.

Subsidy reform, for instance, does not conjure discretionary cash. It closes a hole. Under the old regime, underpricing manifested through arrears, opaque netting, and quasi-fiscal obligations. Reform first eliminates these hidden drains. The fiscal benefit appears gradually—through reduced deficit pressure, better budgeting discipline, and explicit, targeted support—not through a sudden pile of spendable “savings.”

Debt figures are similarly abused. A significant portion of Nigeria’s recent increase in debt stock in naira terms reflects exchange-rate revaluation of existing external obligations, not fresh borrowing. When the exchange rate adjusts, the naira value of dollar-denominated debt rises automatically. Treating this accounting effect as new borrowing is a category error, not a discovery.

Most persistently, federation-wide collections are presented as if they belong solely to the Federal Government. They do not. Revenues in a federation are shared, earmarked, netted, and statutorily allocated. Federal budget reality is determined by FGN retained revenue plus deficit financing, not by gross federation inflows aggregated for political effect.

Tinubunomics was never a promise of instant abundance. It is a macro-fiscal reset undertaken within hard constraints: inherited debt service, FX realism, security spending, legacy arrears, and competing constitutional obligations. Its logic is structural—restoring price signals, strengthening revenue administration, rebuilding credibility, and re-pricing the public balance sheet while protecting the most vulnerable.

Those who insist on treating national finance as a household ledger will always find scandal where none exists. But accountability does not begin with social media addiction. It starts with audit logic.

The proper way to interrogate government performance is simple: examine federal retained revenue; separate it clearly from financing; track expenditure across debt service, personnel, capital, and transfers; and then assess outputs—roads built, power delivered, rail extended, schools and clinics rehabilitated.

Anything else is not subject to scrutiny. It is a theatre.

And no amount of theatrical arithmetic can substitute for fiscal discipline.

*Yakubu is the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation.

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Also featuring are two notable oil and gas industry players, Mr Chikezie Nwosu and Imam Nojeem Jimoh, as  they dissect what has been tagged “Tinubunomics”.

The trio are to walk the audience through Nigeria’s glorious past as a potential economic giant from nationhood and the myriads of pitfalls which saw the nation plunged into a hydra-headed oil subsidy palaver and its debilitating effects with a view to proffering lasting solutions capable of bringing the country out of the doldrums.

It is also geared at assisting the new Nigeria’s helmsman, President Bola Tinubu, on strategies to develop coping mechanisms for revamping the nation, bogged down by extreme foreign debts, multidimensional poverty, insecurity and infrastructural decay.

The programme which will hold online on Sunday June 11, 2023 via Google Meet is expected to be transmitted live by an Abeokuta-based radio station, Oodua 99.9FM,  for the two hour duration from 8pm to 10pm.

Kperogi who is based in Greater Atlanta, USA, joins Mr Chikezie Nwosu, Founder, HSI Energy Resources, based in Netherlands and Imam Nojeem Jimoh, erstwhile Chief Operating Officer, Taurus Oil and Gas Ltd, as Guest Speakers/Discussants at the interactive interview session which parades large global audience.

The topic of discourse is: “Tinubunomics” And The Removal Of Fuel Subsidy: Which Way Nigeria?

Boiling Point Arena, a monthly current affairs programme with an incredibly large online followership, is the brainchild of the Initiator and Convener, Mr. Ayo Arowojolu, a media professional with 33 years multi-varied work career spanning the media, banking and education sectors.

In a press statement, Chairman, Organizing Committee for Boiling Point Arena, one of Nigeria’s foremost Public Relations icons, Mr Eddy Ademosu, enjoined members of the public to join the conversation so as to cross-ventilate ideas and proffer solutions to move Nigeria forward.

Ademosu commended the management of Oodua FM, chaired by the CEO, Dr Victor Mark Eniola, for identifying with worthy causes through partnering with the Boiling Point Arena to widen the audience reach through its terrestrial and online channels.

Boiling Point Arena is a news and general interest platform for informed discussions, viewpoints and commentaries on governance and national development issues.

The platform comprises an array of eminent personalities including over 200 professors, technocrats, industry leaders, high court justices, traditional rulers, security top shots, media professionals and several others.

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