By Owei Lakemfa
There is an on-going debate in the country about the achievements of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu government. Opinions are, as expected, divided. But I notice a streak on the government side which borders on insults, base propaganda and threats. Government must never be tired of explaining its activities and actions which is why it has a full Ministry of Information and several media spokesmen many of who, frankly speaking, confuse matters. Whatever the case, the achievements of the Tinubu administration should not be so microscopic that citizens would need binoculars to view them.
In spite of smear campaigns and threats, especially by some unstable minds that those who do not campaign or vote for Tinubu in the January 2027 risk physical attacks, I have questions to ask. I am glad I can do so under skies different from the military. I recall in those heady days of military drunkenness, the Poet of the People, Odia Ofeimum, had written: “I will ask questions with stones if they take my voice.”
One of the legacy projects of the Tinubu administration is the creation of five regional development agencies to ensure that all six geopolitical zones are covered. These are additional to the existing North-East Development Commission, NEDC, and Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
The new commissions, which are to drive development, are the North-West, signed into law on July 24, 2024; South-East, July 2024; South-West and South-South, early 2025 and, North-Central, signed in February, 2025.
Yes, the Tinubu administration claims it has established them, but they are not funded. So they remain some mirage.
The Federal Ministry of Finance describes the national budget, officially called the Appropriation Act, as “the Federal Government’s annual earning and spending plan. It prioritizes infrastructure, security, and economic growth through capital and recurrent expenditures, funded by taxes, oil sales, and borrowing, aiming to achieve sustainable socio-economic development.”
Adherence to the budget and its time lines are taken seriously by countries. In Nigeria, the Jonathan administration curbed the unhealthy culture of extending annual budgets by directing that all funds unspent by the end of the budgetary year, which was December, must be returned to the treasury.
But why are Nigerians under the Tinubu administration not experiencing the budgetary cycle and discipline? In its three-year existence, it runs three budget cycles simultaneously.
As at April 2026, this year’s Budget is being run simultaneously along with the budgets of previous years. In 2024 and 2025, the administration ran at least three budgets simultaneously, including supplementary budgets. It is like a magician hrowing and catching multiple objects in the air.
Still on the Tinubu era budgets, why are they so miserably implemented when the administration claims it has boosted the country’s revenue generation by 411 percent in the last three years? The Federal Inland Revenue Services Chairman Zach Adedeji claimed that the administration saved a projected N52 trillion expenditure on fuel subsidies. Additionally, the administration has carried out lots of borrowings to the extent that it has increased the total public debt from N87.38 trillion in June 2023 when it took charge, to N159.28 trillion or $110.97 billion by end of December 2025. This means it added a monthly N2.3 trillion to the country’s public debts. So, despite these huge funds and those from the country’s crude oil, why is Tinubu unable to implement even one annual budget? Statistics from the Ministries and public institutions reveal a miserable implementation of the budget.
The Minister of Health, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, at the budget defence in the National Assembly, revealed that in the 2025 budget: “The sum of N218,024,056,657.81 was appropriated to the Ministry for regular capital projects/programmes of the Ministry’s Headquarters. From the sum of N218,024,056,657.81 allocated for Projects/Programmes in 2025, only the sum of N36,000,000.00 representing 0.1 per cent has so far been released…”
These headquarters and capital projects and programmes, according to the Ministry, “aims at strengthening health systems, improving infrastructure, and reducing disease burden. The Key areas include the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund, BHCPF, maternal health improvement, and COVID-19/malaria research.” The Ministry’s website states that “the 2025 proposals included cancer care expansion (NSIA partnership), telemedicine guidelines, and oxygen infrastructure…” It is for these, the Tinubu administration released the paltry N36 million in the budget year. This can only be a joke, and taking the healthcare of over 200 million Nigerians for granted.
Yet, it is the same administration that has released trillions of Naira for the Lagos-Calabar coastal road, a N15 trillion or $12 billion project for which there was no bidding and whose route has undergone and is still undergoing changes. Given the fact that Works Minister David Umahi tends to flare up whenever he is asked to make clarifications on the project, including an issue as basic as the average cost per kilometre, does it not make sense for President Tinubu to call in the anti-corruption agencies?
Electricity is essential for development. Any country that cannot provide electricity is basically condemned to backwardness. Given this fact, when President Tinubu was a candidate in the last elections, he made a vow with the Nigerian people: “Whichever way, by all means necessary, you will have electricity, and you will not pay for estimated bill anymore. A promise made will be a promise kept. If I don’t keep the promise and I come for a second term, don’t vote for me. Unless I give you adequate reasons why I couldn’t deliver.”
The promise made has not been kept. If anything, the electricity supply has worsened. In realisation of this, even the Presidency had in 2025, delinked the Presidential Villa from the public electricity supply at a princely sum of N10 billion. It has become everyone for himself and God for us all. Also, estimated billing of hapless Nigerians continues.
So, in the January 2027 general elections, should the populace hold President Tinubu to his words by not voting for his reelection, or has he compelling reasons to give for his gross failure? In the first place, was the promise a mere gimmick or a joke nobody should have taken seriously?
I live in Abuja and drive on some of the roads newly constructed or dualised in the city by the Tinubu administration. It is a lived experience and there should be no dispute about this reality. So, also do I live in Nigeria, and contrary to the claims of the administration that life has improved under the Tinubu administration, the reality is that more Nigerians are starving and life is, for many, brutish. No amount of propaganda can change the reality the Nigerian people are facing. The Tinubu administration either faces this reality or live in self-delusion. Time will tell.
