By Olufemi Aduwo
SIR: What was sold to Nigerians as “reform” has revealed itself as something far more sinister: State-sanctioned extraction masquerading as economic policy. Consider the numbers. Between 2015 and 2023, Nigeria spent an estimated N12.6 trillion on fuel subsidies: 2015: N654 billion; 2016: N240 billion; 2017: N154 billion; 2018: N1.19 trillion; 2019: N508 billion; 2020: N864 billion; 2021: N1.43 trillion; 2022: N4 trillion; 2023 (Jan–Jun): N3.36 trillion
Yet in the single financial year ended 2024, according to NNPCL’s audited consolidated statements, the Federation accumulated a debt of N17.5 trillion to NNPCL for pipeline protection, energy security operations and under-recoveries on petroleum products a figure dwarfing almost a decade of historical subsidy spending.
This includes N7.13 trillion in energy security costs and N8.67 trillion in under-recoveries, with additional amounts covering pipeline surveillance, repairs, anti-theft measures, and infrastructure safeguards.
One number alone obliterates every moral and economic justification ever offered for subsidy removal. The 2025 expenditure figures for these categories remain pending, but monthly reports through late 2025 highlight ongoing revenue, profits, and remittances without disclosing totals for these high-cost areas.
Let us dispense with euphemisms. As its subsidy removal did not eradicate corruption it institutionalised it. It did not dismantle vested interests it entrenched them. It did not restore fiscal discipline, it diverted public wealth into fewer, more predatory hands.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s public debt has ballooned, rising from N12.6 trillion in 2015 to over N140 trillion today, as deficit financing accelerates unchecked. The government’s repeated promises that subsidy removal would stabilise finances have proven illusory. The visible subsidy was eliminated, only to be replaced by invisible, opaque spending executed with bureaucratic precision.
A ruthless coalition clique, cartel or cabal now presides over a system deliberately structured to immiserate over 250 million citizens while protecting a privileged minority. Hardship has been codified as policy. Opacity has become governance.
Let me be blunt this is among the most damaging administrations Nigeria has experienced. What we are witnessing is not macroeconomic adjustment; it is policy-driven predation.
Don’t be deceived by the international rating agencies, multilateral institutions, they were engaged. I have been a returnee to the World Bank and IMF Boards of Governors Meetings since 2012.
Having served in the Civil Society Policy Forum (CSPF) of the World Bank, and assisted the World Bank Independent Integrity Group, these institutions are diplomatic in words and actions. When these institutions applaud a nation, it is often a signal that citizens are in distress and governance has shifted to optics over substance.
Another four years of this approach would deepen debt distress, accelerate capital flight, erode investor confidence and further impoverish households.
No economy can survive prolonged exposure to predatory governance. History will not recall this era as one of necessary adjustment. It will record it as a national tragedy engineered by professional looters and legitimised with technocratic language. Shame, I mean profound shame on a system that has institutionalised corruption, weaponised policy and dignified theft as governance.
Olufemi Aduwo is Permanent Representative of CCDI to the ECOSOC/ United Nations. CCDI is non-profit organisation with Consultative Status of United Nations.
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