By Oluwafemi O. Toriola
Petrol subsidy removal and foreign exchange (FX) floating policies implemented by the Tinubu-led government are major, far-reaching public policies, which according to best practices must reflect evidence of scientific and conceptual rigour, underlying philosophy, interest negotiation, stakeholder engagement, national values, institutional underpinnings and constitutionalism. Tinubu’s “reforms” failed the tests of these principles and can therefore be described as policies triggered by impulse, and sustained by propaganda and conspiracy.
The inconsistency with best practices in public policy, of the subsidy removal and FX floating policies implemented by the Tinubu-led administration, rationalises the argument that the so-called reforms were poorly implemented. That these so-called reforms were thus haphazardly implemented and sustained up to this moment exposes our deep-seated institutional weaknesses as a democracy. Nothing but government propaganda and elite conspiracy have kept these “reforms” going, to the detriment of the majority of Nigerians.
In strong institutional environments, far-reaching public policies like these must be conceptualised and implemented within established conceptual frameworks like the Process Cycle and Lowi’s Policy Typologies (LPT) models, among other theoretical and institutional constraints. The Process Cycle model breaks policy-making into sequential stages of agenda setting, policy formulation, policy adoption, implementation and evaluation. President Tinubu’s unilateral “subsidy is gone” declaration cannot be considered a public policy against the Process Cycle benchmark.
Evidently, the petrol subsidy removal was completely triggered by impulse while FX floatation policy was consistent with the Elite Theory of public policy which argues that a small, wealthy and powerful group of leaders make decisions that reflect their own values and interests rather than the demands of the general public. In either policy implementation, it is clear that the social impacts of those policies were never a consideration.
The lack of evidence that any conceptual model and institutional constraints guided these policies, and the exclusion of public participation, stakeholder engagement and interest negotiation, provide strong premises to argue that Tinubu’s “reforms” were in effect, not designed in public interest – irrespective of the intention.
The LPT model classifies public policies based on their social impact. This model makes it possible to classify social impacts as either distributive, regulatory, redistributive or constituent. In either of the twin policies implemented by President Tinubu, due process was completely lost. In terms of the social impact (expected outcomes), the Tinubu-led government presents the yet-to-be-achieved objectives of the poorly-implemented reforms, as redistributive.
To the uttermost consternation of economists and policy analysts without vested interests in the spoils and elite deals that have strangulated the majority of Nigerians for the past three and a half years, the Tinubu-led government has continued to promise desirable social impacts of the “reforms” without addressing the need for process rethinking and re-engineering. It makes no sense to expect reasonable outcomes without robust and well-modelled processes, which the “reforms” currently lack. The quality of outcomes reflects the rigour of process.
In a clear “demonstration of serious ignorance on governance and the economy” on the part of President Tinubu, he is known for saying “no going back” on his so-called reforms, suggesting his determination to push the “reforms” through. But without any disposition to process re-engineering, it means the President is committed to forcing the so-called reforms through in the abnormal way they are currently.
This posture reveals the President’s perception of policy evaluation as a weakness and admittance of errors in policy-making, which he considers an affront to his dignity as a “political strategist” and an “economic guru” as he is fondly called by sycophants and praise-singers within his political structures.
Rationally and in line with best practice, evaluation is a major component of the retrospective policy, which provides policy-makers the opportunity to review policy performance and identify areas of improvements; to ensure that deviations are appropriately controlled within targeted thresholds. The President’s aversion to policy evaluation has cost him the opportunity to have re-engineered his policies and made them more effective and sustainable.
In what is a clear divergence from the President’s position, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, the current Minster of Finance and Co-ordinating Minster of the Economy on July 15 2026 inaugurated a Ministerial Advisory Committee to “deepen economic ‘reforms’ and strengthen fiscal decision making”. This is a subtle admittance of failed “reforms” and the need to re-engineer the process.
Coming after three and a half years of avoidable economic hardship, the commitment of the Tinubu-led government to social welfare is extremely doubtful. The timing of this subtle admittance even makes it more doubtful as the committee was set about just barely a month to the opening of the presidential election campaign window. Will the advisory of this committee lead to process re-engineering? This remains a big question for the government to answer.
How then has the Tinubu-led government been able to sustain these bad policies? The answer is simple. Through government propaganda and elite conspiracy. The main propaganda is that, “the macroeconomic performance is now at its best and is now trickling down to the ‘micro’”. To push this propaganda, they deceptively quote macroeconomic indicators like foreign reserves, stock market indices, foreign portfolio investment (FPI) data and moderate economic growth rate, without making allusion to what is fundamentally concerning about these macroeconomic indicators – their sustainability and social costs.
The government has been able to push this propaganda and bad policies through individuals and institutions whose interests have been achieved by the so-called reforms. In public policy, Rational Choice Theory explains that different stakeholder groups within the society pursue their self-interests in public policy formulation and implementation. To avoid scenarios of zero-sum games, democratic best practice in public policy is to facilitate the negotiation of interests toward building stakeholder consensus around public policy and ensuring win-win game scenarios.
Unfortunately, the impulse by which President Tinubu implemented the “reforms” has led to “regulatory capture” – a situation in which small organised groups successfully push for policies that benefit them at the expense of the “unorganised public” – the majority of people within the society. The “organised small groups” that have benefitted from Tinubu’s reforms include: industry lobbies, local and international portfolio investors, and politicians, especially the governors who have received windfalls in Nigeria’s rent-seeking and corruption-ridden environment.
It is therefore not surprising to see “economists” and “policy analysts” passionately promoting the propaganda, with the same passion with which portfolio investors, politicians and governors (in particular), are pushing the propaganda very vehemently. It is nothing but regulatory capture at work, explained by the Elite Theory of public policy. These small groups have internalised the benefits of the so-called reforms while the larger but unorganised public bear the social costs. What an extent of institutional weakness and collapse of national values!
The renewed call for petrol subsidy by Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the forthcoming presidential election, is therefore a major disruption to the status quo, and will therefore be vehemently resisted by the elite groups, whose interests are threatened. It is therefore not surprising that Atiku has since received several attacks from the Tinubu-led government, and these organised small groups since announcing his intention to re-introduce petrol subsidy if elected.
Atiku’s promise to re-introduce petrol subsidy (though a commendable policy perspective) is not necessarily out of compassion for the unorganised public that has been shortchanged in the scheme of things in the context of public choice, it is a strategy to appeal to the unorganised public who are usually the largest voting blocks and determinants of who win elections in strong democratic environments.
As a politician, Atiku’s populist strategy reflects his understanding that he has lost the powerful “organised small groups” to the ruling party who is currently satisfying the groups’ interests, which explains why his policy stance in the current election cycle is radical and directly offensive towards powerful businessmen, industry lobbies, local and foreign portfolio investors, serving governors and other “organised groups”.
These groups have the media, international support and enormous resources to fight opposing interests and to weaken democratic institutions. This is an established argument in institutional theory, and has been widely applied in empirical studies to explain the “resource curse” phenomenon. Thus, the extent to which Atiku can sustain this fight will be seen in the coming weeks as the election approaches.
This piece is not about Atiku or his strategy, reference to Atiku is only used as an illustration of how the “organised small groups” who benefit from Tinubu’s reforms at the expense of the majority of Nigerians , have sustained and will continue to defend Tinubu’s bad policies through propaganda and conspiracy.
Author:
Oluwafemi O. Toriola is an Economist and Strategy Analyst.
He is currently the Managing Consultant at RMBS Stra
