The truth, they say, is constant: in the face of outright falsehood, half-truths, propaganda and prevarications, the truth will always stand out. This is why a country (Nigeria) which its President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said had met and exceeded its revenue target as at August 2025, is now disclosing that it really had a revenue shortfall of thirty trillion naira, as the year is ending. Thirty Trillion Naira!
President Tinubu had, while addressing stakeholders of the Buhari Organisation who visited him at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, declared that Nigeria had met its revenue target for 2025 ahead of schedule. The President said the government would no longer rely on borrowing to fund its budget.
President Tinubu said his administration’s non-oil revenue drive had yielded enough to meet this year’s projections by August, reducing Nigeria’s dependence on external loans. “Today I can stand here before you to brag: Nigeria is not borrowing. We have met our revenue target for the year, and we met it in August,” Tinubu told his visitors in September 2025.
But now, Wale Edun, minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, has come out to contradict President Tinubu by saying that the government has only met N10.7 trillion out of the projected N40.8 trillion revenue for 2025. Addressing the House of Representatives Committee on Finance and National Planning on December 16, 2025, Edun said the federal government was likely to record a revenue shortfall of about N30 trillion in 2025, with total revenue projected to end at N10.7 trillion, far below the initial projection of N40.8 trillion.
The minister attributed the shortfall to weak oil and gas revenues, particularly Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) and Company Income Tax (CIT) from oil and gas companies. He also cited underperformance across several non-oil revenue subheads, compounding the pressure on government finances.
Minister Edun disclosed that the government had borrowed about N14.1 trillion during the year, in an effort to bridge the funding gap created by the revenue shortfall. The revenue challenge, he noted, underscored the vulnerability of Nigeria’s public finance to oil price fluctuations, production shortfalls and structural weaknesses in revenue mobilisation.
In all of these details, the most shocking disclosure is the difference between President Tinubu’s claims and Minister Edun’s update on the country’s fiscal profile. While President Tinubu “bragged” that Nigeria had met and exceeded its revenue target for 2025 in August, Edun, coordinating minister for the economy, disclosed that the government could not even meet half of the projected N40.8 trillion for the year.
The huge gap between President Tinubu’s claims and the finance minister’s disclosures at the Parliamentary Committee only portrays the credibility deficit that has constituted a big drag on the progress of the government of the day. More often than not, President Tinubu plays to the gallery; taking every opportunity to engage in the presentation of what is more of a manifesto than anything else.
This is why President Tinubu would use the visit of a purely political entity (the Buhari Organisation) to veer into an economic update: to show off how his administration’s policies have become a magic wand in turning around the Nigerian economy. However, the disclosures by Edun have fully put the lie to Tinubu’s claims, and vividly shown the hollowness of the president’s address to his politician-visitors.
The Buhari Organisation is a collection of late President Muhammadu Buhari’s adherents and followers, who were members of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a body that formed part of the amalgam of ‘strange bedfellows’ that became the All Progressives Congress (APC) — the governing party of today. So, while addressing these politician-visitors, Mr. President opted to wow them with a bunch of lies and outright falsehood about the fiscal profile of the country. And he goofed egregiously!
Did Nigeria stop borrowing after the visit by a delegation of the Buhari Organisation? The answer is a resounding No! Is the country even likely to meet its projected revenue target (of N40.8 trillion) for 2025? Again, the answer is No. As disclosed by the finance minister, Edun, the government had borrowed about N14.1 trillion during the year (2025), in an effort to bridge the funding gap created by the revenue shortfall.
It goes without saying that President Tinubu’s penchant for speaking off the cuff has cost both his administration and the country so much in terms of credibility, investor confidence and overall image in the comity of nations. At his inauguration on May 29, 2023, Tinubu declared extempore: “fuel subsidy is gone.” By the time the import of this declaration fully unfolded, the entire economy was practically turned upside down; and is yet to fully stabilize, nearly three years after.
The Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPC’s) 2024 financial statement, to the chagrin of Nigerians, shows an unprecedented N17.5 trillion said to have been spent on oil pipelines and energy security operations. A breakdown of the sum shows N7.13 trillion classified as energy-security costs aimed at stabilising petrol prices, plus N8.67 trillion related to “under-recovery” on refined petroleum products, which refers to price gap between the regulated pump price and higher actual import cost absorbed by the NNPC.
Another N8.84 trillion is recorded as receivables for advances and security costs incurred, reinforcing the huge scale of the NNPC’s financial exposure. Overall, these humongous sums put to question the real gains of the so-called subsidy removal. Already, the disclosure of these amounts in the NNPC’s reports has caused public outrage; leading to questions about transparency, accountability and probity in their disbursements and utilisation at a time the government claims fuel subsidy had been removed.
Perhaps, if Tinubu had thought through the ramifications and implications of fuel subsidy removal on May 29, 2023, he would have waited a while as Petroleum Resources Minister, to make the pronouncement. Even for his entire reform policies, he would have done a better sequencing, if not the urge to play to the gallery at all times.
The same predilection for prevarications plays out in President Tinubu’s announcement of ‘goodies’ attracted from each of his numerous travels abroad. On each occasion, Mr. President would return home and tell Nigerians about billions of dollar investment deals signed between Nigeria and the host country. But for 30 months now, there is hardly much on ground (in form of foreign direct investment, FDI) from those deals. But, Nigerians are not fooled!
Now that the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, has told the entire world the true fiscal profile of Nigeria, will Mr. President do the needful by eating the humble pie, and apologize for his lies. And indeed going forward, President Tinubu should desist from speaking off the cuff, and stop every attempt to impress anybody. Speaking opportunities are not a manifesto arena. The president should wait for the 2027 campaign season to begin and show his scorecard!
Marcel Okeke, a practising economist and consultant in Business Strategy & Sustainability based in Lagos, is a former Chief Economist at Zenith Bank Plc. He can be reached at: obioraokeke2000@yahoo.com; +2348033075697
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