IT was refreshing to see Dr Zacch Adedeji, Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, on Seun Okinbaloye’s Politics Today on Channels Television last week. Few senior Nigerian public officials appear to explain government’s stewardship.  I intend to sustain that engagement by examining his remarkable proposition: “If balance sheet of Nigeria is getting better, by extension life of Nigerians are getting better.”He reasoned that Nigerians collectively constitute Nigeria. But aggregation is not distribution.

Consider his four questions: What did we meet? What have we done? What are the results? How does the future look?

What did we meet?

Adedeji identified four “mutually reinforcing distortions” Tinubu’s administration met: an unsustainable subsidy regime; an opaque foreign-exchange market; an underperforming oil sector; and a tax base he considered too small for the economy. The diagnosis has merit. But the patient’s condition must determine the sequence of treatment. Nigeria entered these reforms with widespread poverty, low wages, unreliable electricity, weak public transportation, import dependence and limited social protection—all limiting how much economic shock households could absorb.

What did we do?

The Tinubu administration removed petrol subsidy, unified the foreign-exchange markets, pursued tax reforms and issued executive measures on crude production and revenue collection. These addressed genuine distortions. Tax reform was overdue. But credibility and transparency remain concerns. Last week, Nairametrics reported that although “tax reforms promised relief, evidence shows multiple levies are killing businesses.”

The deeper question is sequencing. Removing petrol subsidy while allowing the naira to depreciate transmitted higher costs through transportation, food, self-generated electricity and imported goods. Adedeji argued that “economics is not run by emotion.” But economics is not the whole of statecraft.  Indeed, South Africa reduced its fuel levy in 2026 to cushion households, foregoing an estimated R17.2 billion in tax revenue. India retains targeted subsidies for domestic cooking gas. Fiscal cost is not the only cost a state must calculate. Social consequences matter too. Adedeji’s own comparators understand that. So do countries that sustain costly programmes such as Britain’s NHS and America’s Medicaid because their value isn’t measured by fiscal cost alone.

Economics asks whether a policy is sustainable. Statecraft asks whether people can survive the transition. Recognising that petrol subsidy—or discount—was unsustainable did not preclude reforming the regime or providing social buffers, particularly alongside a major FX adjustment. That is the distinction between accounting and statecraft.

Òrìṣà, bí o bálègbé mi, ṣemíbí o ṣebá mi—if you cannot improve my condition, leave me as you found me. Reform should remove distortions, not make the poor its shock absorbers. Sequencing also requires production. A country allowing its currency to float while remaining import-dependent must make domestic productive capacity an economic emergency. Government should identify imports Nigeria can replace, remove infrastructure constraints and provide industrial finance. When ministries and agencies purchase imported vehicles where Nigerian alternatives exist, government consumes scarce foreign exchange while exporting industrial demand. Exchange-rate reform changes the price of foreign currency. Industrial policy changes how desperately your economy needs it.

What are the results?

Adedeji’s charts showed tax revenue rising from ₦12.3 trillion to ₦28.3 trillion; capital importation from $3.9 billion to $23.22 billion; solid-minerals revenue from ₦16 billion to ₦70 billion; NGX market capitalisation from ₦30.36 trillion to ₦161 trillion; and the minimum wage from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000. He also said stock-market gains created over 900 millionaires. The World Bank acknowledges Nigeria’s progress in macroeconomic stabilisation.  But the same World Bank says household incomes have “yet to recover fully” and poverty remains high. It estimates that 63 per cent of Nigerians lived below the national poverty line in 2025, up from 61 per cent in 2024, with seven million falling into poverty. This complicates Adedeji’s proposition that a healthier national balance sheet means healthier household lives. For poor households, food can consume up to 70 per cent of income.

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The Nigerian state has a balance sheet. So does every household. Lower inflation means prices are rising more slowly;it does not restore purchasing power. A worker receiving ₦70,000 does not automatically have greater purchasing power than one receiving ₦30,000 before living costs rose sharply.

Is Nigerian petrol really cheap?

Adedeji’s presentation placed Nigeria at $0.90 per litre, against $1.08 in the United States, $1.17 in India, $1.26 in South Africa and a $1.50 global average, concluding that Nigeria’s pump price was 63 per cent below the global average. But there is an elementary problem: $0.90 is 40 per cent below $1.50, not 63 per cent. Conversely, $1.50 is about 67 per cent higher than $0.90. If a presentation by the Chairman of NRS cannot get such elementary arithmetic right, should its other numbers not receive closer scrutiny?

Even if the arithmetic were corrected, the comparison is inadequate. Price is not affordability. A litre of petrol does not become affordable merely because it converts into fewer dollars than petrol elsewhere. Nigeria’s exchange rate moved from ₦463–₦700/$ in May 2023 to ₦1,360/$. Nigerians buy petrol in naira and earn their wages in naira. After such depreciation, why convert the naira pump price into dollars and compare it across countries without comparing the incomes from which petrol is purchased? The administration celebrates crude-for-naira to reduce FX pressure, yet converts petrol into dollars to demonstrate affordability. A meaningful comparison should normalise petrol prices against income and purchasing power: how many litres a wage buys, what share of income energy consumes, and what alternatives citizens have. The table tells us little. Good statecraft does not ask merely, “How does our price compare with the world?” It asks, “What does this price mean in the lived economy of our people?”

How does the future look?

Adedeji portrayed the economy as an aircraft that had survived take-off and reached cruising altitude, telling Nigerians they could loosen their belts because “food is about to be served.” I hope so. For poor Nigerians spending up to 70 per cent of income on food, the question is whether they can afford food today. They need productive employment, reliable electricity, agricultural productivity, public transportation, industrial finance and domestic production. Adedeji also argued that the fundamentals of the electricity sector have been fixed by the Electricity Act 2025. That conclusion is premature. Legal decentralisation is not a power-system architecture. What happens to the national grid, and how will state systems interconnect and trade electricity? I addressed these questions in last week’s column, “Projects Are Not a Power System: Is Minister Tegbe Confused?” I invite the NRS Chairman to read it.

When confronted with the 63 per cent poverty estimate, Adedeji argued that without the reforms perhaps twice as many Nigerians would have fallen into poverty. That counterfactual is unprovable; the observed poverty is not.With millions of Nigerians entering the labour market annually, macroeconomic recovery without job creation cannot produce broad prosperity.

This is why social protection must become data-intelligent. Rather than return to indiscriminate subsidies, government should use identity systems and an auditable social register to target support to vulnerable households and small businesses. States and local governments should share in targeted electricity subsidies, as higher federation revenues have increased statutory allocations. More importantly, those revenues must become visible in healthcare, education, infrastructure and economic opportunity. More revenue without better public services is merely a richer government presiding over poorer citizens.

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Conclusion

Adedeji is right that Nigeria cannot build prosperity upon fiscal illusion, a distorted exchange-rate regime or an unsustainable subsidy. But government must recognise that macroeconomic stability is a means, not the objective. The ultimate balance sheet is the Nigerian household. If government revenue rises, reserves strengthen and GDP expands while families cannot afford food, transportation, housing and energy, reform remains unfinished. Citizens do not eat GDP, reserves or tax receipts.When will the Nigerian household’s balance sheet get better?

And how many more Nigerians must fall into poverty before it does?