Re: History Tinubu should have learnt

By Tanimu Yakubu

THERE is criticism, and there is confusion elevated to performance art. Suyi Ayodele’s “History Tinubu Should Have Learnt” is not an argument—it is a cascade of assertions built on a startling ignorance of how modern economies function. It is one thing to oppose policy. It is quite another to do so while demonstrating no working knowledge of public finance, sovereign borrowing, external reserves, or international trade architecture. Mr Ayodele manages all four confidently.

Subsidy Removal: Fiscal space is not a cash windfall:

The article’s animating question—why a government that removed subsidies still borrows—rests on a false premise. Fuel subsidy removal does not produce a pile of surplus cash. It stops haemorrhage. It reduces a recurrent fiscal burden that had become structurally unsustainable. What it creates is fiscal space, not fiscal abundance. Nigeria remains a developing economy with: large infrastructure deficits, binding revenue constraints, legacy debt service obligations. In such a context, borrowing is not evidence of failure; it is an instrument of transition. To expect subsidy removal to eliminate borrowing is to confuse budget arithmetic with economic transformation.

Mr. Ayodele repeatedly equates borrowing with “begging”. This is not analysis—it is slogan. Every functioning economy borrows. The United States borrows. The United Kingdom borrows. Even the countries Nigerians aspire to migrate to borrow—extensively. The question is not whether to borrow, but why and on what terms. A loan tied to port rehabilitation is not consumption—it is productive capital formation. Efficient ports reduce trade costs, improve competitiveness, expand fiscal revenues over time. To deride such borrowing is to argue, in effect, that Nigeria should remain inefficient in order to remain ideologically pure. The outrage over UK Export Finance conditions—requiring partial sourcing from British firms—is particularly revealing. This is not exploitation. It is how export credit agencies function globally. China does it. Germany does it. The United States does it.

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The UK does it. Indeed, it would be negligent for any government not to support its domestic industry through such instruments. The real issue is whether Nigeria is using that financing to upgrade critical infrastructure. On that question, Mr. Ayodele is conspicuously silent—because it would require engaging with facts rather than sentiment.

Ajaokuta: The ritual invocation of a policy failure

No Nigerian polemic is complete without invoking Ajaokuta. Yet Ajaokuta’s paralysis has nothing to do with the availability of external finance. It is the product of decades of institutional failure, contractual incoherence, and policy drift. To suggest that refusing to modernise ports will somehow revive Ajaokuta is not just incorrect—it is conceptually incoherent. A functioning steel industry would, in fact, depend on efficient ports, not compete with them.

Foreign reserves are not a kitchen drawer of spare cash: Perhaps the most elementary error in the article is treating foreign reserves as though they were idle funds available for discretionary spending. Foreign reserves are macroeconomic buffers, not budgetary allocations. They exist to stabilise the exchange rate, meet external obligations, sustain investor confidence. Deploying reserves for infrastructure in lieu of borrowing would weaken the very stability that makes investment possible. In serious economies, reserves are protected. They are not casually liquidated to satisfy rhetorical impatience. The portrayal of migration cooperation as a surrender of sovereignty is, at best, theatrical. Readmission agreements are standard instruments of international law. They ensure that countries take responsibility for their nationals, particularly those without legal status abroad. There is nothing novel, and certainly nothing colonial, about such arrangements. What is novel is presenting routine diplomatic practice as national capitulation.

History misused, not understood

The invocation of the 1962 Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact is a rhetorical flourish in search of relevance. Nigeria today is not negotiating military subordination. It is engaging in economic cooperation within a globalised system. To conflate the two is to mistake analogy for analysis. Mr. Ayodele writes with great certainty. Unfortunately, that certainty is not matched by comprehension. What we are presented with is not economic critique, but economic impressionism—broad strokes, dramatic language, and no structural understanding. It is easy to ask populist questions: “Why borrow?” “Where are the savings?” It is harder—but necessary—to understand: fiscal consolidation pathways, capital financing structures, the distinction between liquidity and solvency.

Nigeria’s economic challenges are real. They demand serious engagement, not rhetorical theatrics. Public discourse is not served by loud misunderstandings of basic concepts. It is not elevated by substituting analytical rigour with cultural aphorisms and insinuation. Criticism is welcome—even necessary. But when criticism is built on conceptual error, it ceases to illuminate and begins to mislead. And Nigeria, at this stage of its economic evolution, can ill afford to be misled by those who mistake volume for validity.

•Yakubu, an economist, is the Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation.