FG Responds to Atiku, Says He Relied on Outdated Statistics

The Presidency has defended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies against criticism by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, saying the administration’s reforms are yielding positive results, despite initial challenges.

The Presidency also dismissed claims of fiscal recklessness, excessive borrowing and mismanagement of public finances, describing Atiku’s claims as misleading and based on outdated economic data.

The government’s position was stated in a statement issued on Saturday, titled, “Facts, Not Fear: A Point-by-Point Response to Atiku Abubakar on Nigeria’s Reform Journey,” by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.

Onanuga said the former vice-president was citing economic indices of 2024 without minding the developments that had occurred since then.

“Disagreement fuels politics. It is required by democracy. But he said disagreements must be based on facts, not frozen snapshots of history.”

“When data from yesterday are presented as today’s reality, the public deserves context.”

According to him, economies are in constant evolution and reforms should be judged by the conditions at the end of their implementation, not by the conditions at the beginning.

“The first observation could be chronological. It is interesting that the opposition’s main economic argument in the middle of 2026 remains based on developments in the 2024 fiscal year. Economies change. “Reforms are processes, not events,” he said.

Nigeria’s economy has improved after the foreign exchange reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration, the presidential spokesman said.

He said the country’s dollar-denominated Gross Domestic Product climbed to about $377 billion from around $253 billion after the exchange-rate adjustment, while the naira value of the economy rose to around ₦530 trillion from about ₦314 trillion in 2024.

In response to Atiku’s concern over the country’s debt burden, the Presidency argued that the sustainability of debt was more important than the total amount borrowed.

There is a need to ask a wider question on Nigeria’s debt: What is Nigeria’s capacity to service her debt? “Debt in itself is not the measure of fiscal health,” Onanuga said.

According to him, Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio was still at about 40 per cent, which he described as relatively low when compared to several African and developed economies.

The presidency also defended the removal of fuel subsidy, saying the policy had drastically increased allocations to states and local governments.

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Onanuga said the additional revenue had enabled subnational governments to invest more in infrastructure, education, healthcare and other development projects.

“Subsidy removal has had the visible consequence of sharply improving revenues accruing to states and local governments through the Federation Account,” he said.

The Presidency dismissed claims that the government had imposed heavier taxes on Nigerians on tax reforms.

“The goal of the tax reforms is not simply to raise collections, but to build a more equitable and broader tax system,” Onanuga said.

The reforms, he explained, were aimed at reducing the tax burden for low-income earners and small businesses while increasing compliance from wealthy individuals and profitable companies.

The Presidency also disputed Atiku’s claim that the Federal Government benefited from an alleged ₦7.98 trillion oil windfall.

Onanuga said the calculation ignored production costs, the share of crude allocated to oil companies and existing crude sale agreements.

“There is no windfall of ₦7.98 trillion,” he said.

“The convenient error that many analysts make is to multiply the oil price times the daily crude production volume to determine revenue to the government.”

He said crude-backed loan obligations and lower-than-expected production had reduced the actual revenue available to government despite favourable global oil prices.

The Presidency said the administration also recorded progress in healthcare, education and social intervention programmes, including the upgrade of over 3,000 primary healthcare centres, retraining of more than 78,000 frontline health workers and disbursement of over ₦303 billion through the Nigerian Education Loan Fund to more than 1.64 million students across 300 tertiary institutions.

Onanuga said the reforms were laying the foundation for long-term economic stability, despite short-term hardships.

History rarely remembers governments for the popularity of their decisions in the moment. “It remembers whether those decisions ultimately built up or tore down the nation,” he said.

He said the economy was yet to get to the destination it was heading to, but the Tinubu administration would continue to implement reforms to expand opportunities, strengthen institutions and improve the living standards of Nigerians.