Nigeria’s Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, has said the removal of the petrol subsidy and the unification of the foreign-exchange market mobilised ₦15.8 trillion for the Federation from June 2023 to December 2025, while insisting that the reforms did not create a large pool of cash sitting idle in government accounts.
Oyedele made the claim at Wednesday’s press conference on “Nigeria’s Reforms Scorecard”, where he presented a detailed account of what the reforms cost, what the government says they delivered and the economic damage they allegedly prevented.
The briefing opened with welcome remarks by Information and National Orientation Minister Mohammed Idris, who said Nigerians deserved a clear account of the resources freed by the reform and how they were being used.
“We’re not here to pretend these reforms were painless. We’re here to show you honestly and with the numbers, what they cost, the benefit they delivered, and the harm that they prevented.” — Taiwo Oyedele says during his presentation.
The Minister’s central explanation
Oyedele said the widely discussed ₦15.8 trillion did not appear as a single credit to the Federation Account labelled “subsidy savings.” Instead, he said, the impact appeared through higher collections and additional resources generated after the reforms.
He attributed part of the increase to higher naira receipts from customs and petroleum related taxes after exchange rate moved from the former official level of about ₦460 to the range of roughly ₦1,300‒₦1,500 to the dollar.
He also said the result reflected not only
the end of the petrol subsidy but the removal of what he described as an implicit foreign exchange subsidy. According to the Minister, the ₦15.8 trillion was distributed through the Federation Account.
The Federal Government’s share was approximately ₦5.4 trillion, while about ₦10.4 trillion went to state and local governments. The detailed figures total slightly above ₦15.8 trillion because of rounding.
The key point in Oyedele’s presentation was that the savings accrued to the Federation and were shared among the three tiers of government, rather than being retained entirely by the Federal
Government.
₦20.4tn in resources, ₦30.64tn in spending
Oyedele said the Federal Government’s total incremental resources during the period reached ₦20.4 trillion.
In his breakdown, that comprised approximately ₦15.8 trillion in subsidy- and FX-reform-related resources, ₦3.1 trillion in incremental independent revenue and ₦11.9 trillion in additional borrowing.
The Minister said the independent revenue came principally from remittances by the government-owned entities and higher surplus remittances from government agencies.
He also argued that the additional borrowing would have been considerably higher, and economically destabilising, without the fiscal space created by the reforms.
Against the ₦20.4 trillion in incremental resources, however, the Federal Government recorded approximately ₦30.64 trillion in incremental expenditure during the same period.
Oyedele said the balance came from the existing revenue base, adding that roughly two-thirds of the additional expenditure was funded by new resources while the remaining third— about ₦10 trillion—came from existing revenues.
Oyedele’s formulation was that subsidy removal reduced the borrowing burden rather than eliminating need to borrow. “The figures tell a financing story, not simply a savings story,” he said.
Wages overtook the Federal Govt’s subsidy savings
The largest single expenditure line identified in the presentation was wage- related spending. Oyedele said Federal Government spent ₦9.39 trillion on wage adjustments, minimum-wage increases and allowances for public servants during the period.
He stressed that the additional cost of higher wages exceeded the entire subsidy savings earned directly by the Federal Government.
The point was used to argue that the reform was not introduced primarily as a revenue-raising measure, but to end what the Minister described as entrenched corruption and distortions in the petrol and foreign- exchange markets.
The wage bill also reflected the increase in the national minimum wage from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000, as well as wage awards and related allowances.
A further ₦9.37 trillion went to external- debt servicing, according to Oyedele. He attributed the higher naira cost partly to the depreciation of the currency: a dollar obligation remained the same in dollar terms, he explained, but required substantially more naira to service.
Government’s claimed benefits
Oyedele said the reforms had produced
practical gains for ordinary Nigerians, including the regular payment of salaries and pensions and the settlement of longstanding pension arrears.
He claimed that 27 states had struggled to pay salaries and pensions before the reforms, while the current number of states in default was zero.
He further said the government’s
estimate was that at least 30 states would have been struggling to pay workers by 2026 if the pre-reform trajectory had continued.
The Minister also cited the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, saying it was supporting more than 1.5m students, alongside cash transfers, subsidised mortgages, agricultural support, food- security measures and a new tax law that exempts low-income earners and
small businesses from tax.
He said the reforms had also narrowed the premium between the official and parallel exchange rates, strengthened foreign reserves and supported economic growth.
In his presentation, headline inflation had fallen to 15.91% in June 2026, from a May 2023 baseline of 22.41%; real GDP growth had reached 3.89%, compared with a baseline of 2.31%; and net external reserves had risen from roughly $3 billion to $34.8 billion.
The Minister said food inflation had eased from 24.82% to 17.52% by June 2026 and had fallen further in the latest July figures. But he classified poverty and household-welfare recovery as “unfinished business,” rather than as a completed success.
What happens next
Oyedele said the government would continue implementing the Nigerian Tax Act, improve budgetary reporting and accountability, keep the exchange-rate system unified and predictable, and work to bring headline inflation towards single digits without returning to the former subsidy regime.
He said the next phase would focus on translating macroeconomic stability into household relief by expanding cash transfers, deepening agricultural interventions and working with state and local govts across Nigeria’s 774 local govt councils.
The Finance Minister said the full scorecard and supporting data would be made available on the Federal Ministry of Finance website for public scrutiny. That commitment will be crucial to credibility of the presentation.
