Nigeria Would Have Faced Worse Economic Crisis Without Tinubu’s Reforms — Finance Minister

Nigeria Would Have Faced Worse Economic Crisis Without Tinubu’s Reforms — Finance Minister

By Kabir ABDULSALAM

Nigeria would have faced a more severe economic crisis, including deeper fiscal pressures, declining external reserves and greater reliance on borrowing, if the fuel subsidy regime, multiple exchange rates and unchecked Ways and Means financing had continued, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, has said.

Oyedele made the submission on Wednesday in Abuja while unveiling the Federal Government’s “Nigeria’s Reform Scorecard: The Benefits, Cost and Harms Prevented,” a review of the economic reforms implemented under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

The minister said the government was not claiming that the reforms had been painless, acknowledging that their implementation had increased prices, triggered a sharp adjustment in the value of the naira and imposed pressure on households and businesses.

However, he said the government’s assessment showed that the cost of maintaining the old economic structure would have been significantly higher.

According to him, the scorecard compares Nigeria’s economic position before the reforms with its current position and a projected “no-reform” scenario.

He said the projection was based on trends already evident before May 2023, including the pace at which debt servicing was consuming government revenue, the depletion of external reserves used to defend the exchange rate and the growth of Ways and Means financing.

Oyedele said these trends were extended forward to determine where the economy could reasonably have been in 2026 if the previous policies had remained unchanged.

“That third column is not a guess pulled from the air,” the minister said, explaining…