The Federal Government has said the removal of fuel subsidy and reforms in Nigeria’s foreign exchange market generated an estimated ₦15.8 trillion in additional resources for the federation between June 2023 and December 2025.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed the figure on Wednesday while presenting the Government’s “Nigerians’ Reform Scorecard”, an assessment designed to measure the costs, gains and broader effects of the economic reforms introduced by President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
According to Oyedele, the ₦15.8 trillion should not be interpreted as a single payment or direct transfer into the Federation Account under a heading such as “subsidy savings”.
Rather, he explained that the amount represented increased revenue accruing to the federation as the Government implemented major changes to fuel pricing and the foreign exchange system.
The Minister said the reforms changed the way Government revenue was valued and collected, particularly because the unification and liberalisation of the foreign exchange market increased the naira value of dollar-denominated Government receipts.
He identified customs duties and other foreign currency-linked revenues as some of the areas where the impact became visible.
The reforms were among the most significant economic policy decisions taken by the Tinubu administration after it assumed office in May 2023. President Tinubu announced the end of the petrol subsidy in his inaugural address on May 29, 2023, while the Central Bank of Nigeria subsequently moved to unify segments of the foreign exchange market.
Both policies have remained at the centre of Nigeria’s economic debate, with the Government arguing that they were necessary to reduce fiscal distortions, improve revenue mobilisation and attract investment.
However, the reforms also imposed significant pressure on households and businesses, particularly through higher petrol prices, transport costs and inflation. It was reported in July that the Government was developing a broader “shared prosperity” scorecard to determine whether the reforms were translating into improvements in poverty levels, real incomes and inequality.
Oyedele, while defending the foreign exchange reforms, said the previous exchange-rate structure had created opportunities for arbitrage and rent-seeking rather than delivering the stability it was supposed to provide.
He argued that the Government had effectively been subsidising foreign exchange under the old system, but that the benefits were not necessarily reaching ordinary Nigerians or productive businesses.
“We were subsidising the exchange rates, and that subsidy was not going to the ordinary person or manufacturers; it was going to rent seekers,” the Minister said.
Under the former system, different exchange rates existed for different categories of transactions, creating a wide gap between official and parallel-market rates at various points. The Government’s reforms sought to reduce those distortions by allowing market forces to play a greater role in determining the value of the naira.
Oyedele said the resulting increase in the naira value of foreign-currency-denominated collections contributed substantially to the additional resources recorded by the federation.
He disclosed that of the ₦15.8 trillion attributed to the combined impact of the subsidy removal and foreign exchange reforms, the Federal Government received ₦5.4 trillion.
The remaining ₦10.4 trillion, according to the Minister, accrued to state and local governments through the Federation Account allocation mechanism.
The figures highlight the way changes in federal revenue can affect all three tiers of Government because resources distributed from the Federation Account are shared among the Federal Government, states and local governments according to existing allocation arrangements.
Beyond the ₦15.8 trillion attributed to the two major reforms, Oyedele disclosed that the Federal Government generated another ₦3.1 trillion in independent revenue during the period under review.
He said the additional independent revenue was driven largely by improved remittances from Government-owned enterprises and other Government entities.
The disclosure is significant because improving internally generated and independent Government revenue has been one of the administration’s major fiscal priorities. Nigeria has historically depended heavily on oil revenue and borrowing to finance Government expenditure, while weak remittances and revenue leakages from Government-owned entities have also been identified as persistent fiscal challenges.
The Federal Government has therefore pursued measures aimed at improving the financial performance of Government-owned enterprises and strengthening the collection and remittance of public revenue.
Oyedele also disclosed that the Government raised ₦11.9 trillion through incremental borrowing between June 2023 and December 2025.
He, however, argued that the volume of borrowing would have been substantially higher if the fiscal space created by the economic reforms had not provided the Government with additional resources.
The Minister’s comments come amid continued debate over whether the gains from Nigeria’s economic reforms are sufficient to offset the immediate hardship experienced by citizens.
The Government has maintained that the reforms were necessary to correct long-standing structural weaknesses in the economy, including expensive fuel subsidies, multiple exchange rates, weak revenue mobilisation and excessive dependence on borrowing.
Critics, however, have pointed to the sharp increase in the cost of living that followed the removal of the petrol subsidy and the depreciation of the naira. Inflation and food prices rose significantly during the period, placing additional pressure on household budgets and business operating costs.
The Government’s proposed reform scorecard is intended to provide a more comprehensive way of evaluating the programme beyond headline economic figures.
Oyedele had earlier said the Federal Government wanted to track indicators including poverty, real income and inequality to determine whether macroeconomic improvements were translating into better living conditions for Nigerians.
This approach reflects the administration’s acknowledgement that stronger Government revenue, improved foreign exchange liquidity and greater investor confidence do not automatically mean that citizens are better off.
For the Government, the ₦15.8 trillion figure represents part of the fiscal gains associated with the reforms. For ordinary Nigerians, however, the more important question remains whether those additional resources can ultimately translate into lower living costs, better infrastructure, improved public services, job creation and stronger purchasing power.
The reforms have also received support from international financial institutions and investors, who have generally viewed the removal of fuel subsidies and foreign exchange liberalisation as steps towards correcting long-standing economic distortions.
At the same time, international assessments have continued to highlight the social cost of the adjustment. It was reported in July that although the reforms had improved investor sentiment and contributed to greater economic stability, a large proportion of Nigerians continued to face poverty and food insecurity.
The Government is now under pressure to demonstrate that the fiscal gains being reported are not merely improvements in Government accounts but are part of a broader economic recovery that benefits citizens.
Oyedele’s presentation therefore places the ₦15.8 trillion figure within a wider argument by the Federal Government that the difficult reforms implemented since 2023 have created additional fiscal capacity for Nigeria.
Whether those gains will translate into sustained improvements in household welfare, however, is likely to remain one of the key tests of the Tinubu administration’s economic agenda as the reform programme enters its next phase.