Oluwatobi Adu 
Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu
ABUJA, Nigeria – Nigeria’s Budget Office says Tinubunomics targets structural reform, not instant wealth, dismissing claims built on “arithmetic illusions” and misread public finance.
Director-General Tanimu Yakubu says debates often inflate figures by confusing revenue with borrowing and federation receipts with federal spend. “This is not economic analysis. It is an arithmetic illusion,” he says in Abuja.
Yakubu explains that loans are financing, not income, and create future obligations. Federation receipts, he adds, are shared across tiers of government and do not equal federal cash. “These are the foundations of public finance,” he says.
On fuel subsidy removal, Yakubu says the reform closes fiscal gaps rather than releasing idle cash. “The benefit appears gradually—through reduced deficits and better budgeting—not sudden spendable savings,” he notes.
Addressing debt concerns, he attributes headline increases largely to exchange-rate adjustments that raise naira valuations of dollar-denominated debt without new borrowing. Mislabeling this accounting effect as fresh loans, he says, is a categorisation error.
“Accountability does not begin with social media arithmetic,” Yakubu adds. “It starts with audit logic.”
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