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 a 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.
Borrowing: The Difference Between Investment and Illiteracy
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.
Export Credit Financing: Discovering How the World Works
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. 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 modernize 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: 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.
