President Tinubu Ended Fuel Subsidy, So Where Is the Money He Saved Going?
Good question. And without beating around the bush, I will show you five key areas where the money saved is going.
In April 2023, just a month before the handover of power from General Buhari to President Bola Tinubu, JP Morgan, in a report titled 'Nigeria: Reform Pause Rather Than Fatigue', exposed that the Buhari administration actually left Nigeria with a net foreign reserve of $3.7 billion, rather than the $14 billion they claimed in public. From that meagre amount, the Tinubu government has raised our foreign reserves to $50.26 billion, as of Monday, June 8, 2026, our highest level in seventeen years.
You may ask why Nigeria needs such high reserves. It is to protect our economy against future economic shocks arising from a crash in exports, to help pay for vital goods and services we need from overseas, and, finally, to guarantee our loans.
Each state in the federation is now receiving at least double (some more than double) what they were getting under General Buhari when Nigeria still operated the subsidy regime. For example, the Federation Account Allocation Committee distributed a total of ₦725.571 billion as revenue to the three tiers of government in March 2022. However, for the same period in 2026, namely March 2026, the FAAC disbursed ₦2.036 trillion to the three tiers, which is three times what they received under General Buhari's regime.
Under President Tinubu, all six geopolitical zones now have development commissions, including the Northwest Development Commission, North-Central Development Commission, Northeast Development Commission, Southwest Development Commission, Southeast Development Commission, and the Niger Delta Development Commission.
These commissions have been receiving approximately ₦2.5 trillion annually under Tinubu, a new subvention they did not receive under the Buhari administration, because most of them did not even exist.
Over a million indigent Nigerian students are now receiving approximately ₦300 billion as loans under the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) initiative of President Tinubu's Renewed Hope Agenda.
Infrastructure: No other administration in the history of this nation has democratised road construction to the extent that the Tinubu government has done, simultaneously connecting the Southwest with the South-South via the 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway being built for ₦15 trillion, linking the Northwest to the Southwest with the 1068-kilometre Illela-Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway costing ₦13 trillion, and bridging the gap between the Southeast and the entire North through the 465-kilometre Trans-Saharan Road is being constructed at a price of an estimated $750 million.
Although there are more, these are five tangible areas where you can see the subsidy savings at work. Before the Tinubu government was inaugurated, we had a paltry foreign reserve and most states had a several-month backlog of wages. Today, states are no longer owing salaries because of increased subventions from the Tinubu-led Federal Government.
Nigerians can feel the impact of three years of the Tinubu administration, which is the first time in our history that we have not experienced strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, because lecturers are now well paid, while students are receiving non-interest student loans.
The six regions now have their development commissions, and they are well funded. In addition, road and rail works are ongoing across all geopolitical zones.
So, with these facts in mind, it is a fallacy for anyone to say that the President ended the fuel subsidy regime, but you don't know where the money saved from that wasteful programme went. The funds went towards improving your life and Human Development Index as a Nigerian through the initiatives listed above!
Reno Omokri
Ambassador Designate to Mexico. Gospeller. Deep Thinker.. #1 Bestselling author
@DefenseNigeria Omo these guys have never defeated any insurgent but they are always eager to build military bases in other countries to help them fight insurgents
With respect, this post raises valid pains but suspends logic for emotion and selective facts. Reforms are not “reckless punishment”, they are necessary corrections to decades of unsustainable distortions.
Now, let us examine your points with evidence, not assumptions, as it appears to me, no any logical or factually grounded counter has been offered, just heat.
Point 1 - “Strips benefits, offers virtually nothing”:
False. The FG has deployed massive palliatives: N5bn+ per state in food/fertiliser, expanded cash transfers (HoPE-CT/NG-CARES reaching millions), ₦25k+ wage awards, pension support, and NELFUND student loans (hundreds of billions disbursed to over a million students). CNG initiatives are rolling out conversion centres and stations nationwide to cut transport costs. These are documented bridges, not “nothing.” World Bank and IMF have noted these efforts alongside stabilisation gains.
Point 2 - No investments, factories, or electricity:
The savings and new revenues are funding real infrastructure. Coastal Highway, Sokoto-Badagry Expressway, AKK Gas Pipeline, rail expansions, PHC revitalisation (thousands upgraded), and power reforms under the Electricity Act enabling states/private players. CNG push is creating jobs in conversion and maintenance. IMF 2025 Article IV praises bold reforms (subsidy removal, FX unification) for improved resilience, revenue, and investor confidence. No “Industrial Revolution” overnight, structural change takes time, but direction is clear. Pre-reform trajectory was fiscal collapse.
Point 3 - Wealth transfer to elites:
Increased FAAC allocations have enabled many states to pay salaries consistently (impossible pre-2023 in several cases) and fund projects. Yes, governance challenges and leakages exist, so it is in order to demand accountability. But dismissing all as “private pockets” ignores visible projects, tax reforms for equity, digital registries for transparency, and private sector responses (NGX rally on reform signals). Local Government autonomy ruling further decentralises development. Not perfect, but not “purely wealth transfer.”
Point 4: Hardships & “Suffering without purpose”:
Hardships are real; inflation, fuel costs hit hard. No denial. But calling it purposeless ignores expert consensus: World Bank notes reforms stopped Nigeria from “fiscal cliff” and created space for people-centred actions (social safety nets, food inflation fight). IMF highlights stabilisation, growth potential, and resilience. Electricity/security are inherited + multifaceted problems; efforts like CNG/gas value chain and state police pushes address them. Reversing to old subsidy regime solves nothing, it returns debt and shortages.
I agree, implementation can and must improve, better targeting, communication, anti-corruption. But your response presents a one-sided “elitist, futile” narrative that downplays necessity and documented progress.
True reform serves people long-term by fixing fundamentals. Painful? Yes. Reckless? No. Evidence shows deliberate direction with light ahead for those who see beyond immediate emotion.
Disagree on gaps? Fair game. But let’s engage facts, not suspend logic. Demand better execution from all leaders across all levels of government, without cherry-picking.
The kidnappings and brutal murder of school children and teachers in Oyo and other states of the federation have absolutely nothing to do with Islam or the teachings of Prophet Mohammed.
The reason our women and school children in Oyo are forced to sleep in the forests for weeks and are ruthlessly tortured by rag-tag militias is not because of Jihad or Islam or whatever nonsense propaganda the media wants you to believe. The real reason is simply because Oyo state is heavily blessed with massive, unmined deposits of Uranium, highly sought-after lithium, pure gold, and rare earth gemstones.
Now, the good people in Oyo State who are the primary victims of this manufactured insecurity, who are forced to sleep in total darkness and depend on highly expensive diesel just to sustain their petty businesses, may not be aware that they have enough uranium buried right under their feet to build nuclear reactors that could comfortably power the entire country for the next three hundred years.
But this local ignorance is completely insignificant in the ruthless geopolitical arena. Nigerians may very well be kept ignorant, but the Western nations who desperately need this uranium to power their massive industrial grids and nuclear submarines are absolutely not ignorant. The struggling youth in Oyo may not care about the raw gold beneath their soil, but the ruthless financial cartels in Dubai and Switzerland who melt, refine, and launder these blood minerals for American dollars are very much interested in them. The educated middle class in Nigeria, who would rather abandon their country and reduce themselves to overworked cleaners, taxi drivers, and caregivers in Canada and the UK instead of violently challenging the oppressors who have captured their state institutions, may very well be ignorant of the existence of huge deposits of lithium scattered all over the country. But the Silicon Valley conglomerates who desperately need these precious stones and rare earth elements for the new Apple M-series neural chips, Tesla electric vehicle batteries, and advanced military microprocessors are very much interested in these minerals. They will do absolutely anything to violently lift it out of the ground in Africa and ship it directly to their high-tech research labs overseas.
This is exactly why whenever there are sudden insecurity challenges such as mass kidnappings, brutal terror attacks on schools, and massacres at worship centers, there are always massive illegal mining activities running quietly in the background shadows. Indeed, in this year alone, almost forty people including heavily funded foreign nationals have been arrested by our local security agencies on strict charges related to illegal mining. Even a massive convoy of seven heavy-duty trucks loaded with raw uranium and lithium ore was intercepted and seized by state security forces just this year alone in Oyo state.
The terror activities are definitely not a holy jihad. They execute these bloody campaigns to install absolute, paralyzing fear in the local population and violently chase them away from their ancestral lands. Once the villages are emptied, these foreign companies and their local political enforcers can then seamlessly move in with their heavy drilling equipment, excavators, and chemical processors to extract these precious stones to power their trillion-dollar corporate empires.
The brainwashed recruits who physically carry out these terror attacks on their behalf may very well tell their traumatized victims that it is a Fulani agenda to Islamize Nigeria. They may very well release highly edited, pre-recorded videos claiming how these terror attacks are done to honor the teachings of Mohammed. But you must understand that these are all carefully constructed psychological operations and cheap propaganda.
What foot soldiers believe they are fighting for is completely irrelevant. Those ideologies are merely fairy-tale stories created to condition them psychologically to sustain the brutal war efforts for their hidden masters. For example, if George Bush had told the American troops the honest truth, that they all needed to go to the desert and die simply so that American defense contractors and oil majors could make an extra hundred billion dollars in corporate profits, they would have all dropped their rifles and badges and immediately renounced their duties. In the worst-case scenario, they would have stormed the White House, dragged the president out of the Oval Office, poured kerosene on him, and lit him on fire. So obviously, this truthful tactic will never work for any empire.
So instead, these gullible American troops were fed the lie that they were fighting a global "terror regime" that was secretly building weapons of mass destruction to wipe out humanity. This total change of narrative is crucial because the soldiers need to see themselves not as disposable, brainwashed tools fighting for corporate profit margins, but as heroic freedom fighters working for global peace and democratic stability. But at the end of the day, when you ignore the political speeches and simply follow the money trail, you get to understand what is truly happening. When Iraq violently fell, their sovereign gold reserves were immediately loaded onto armored trucks and shipped to the US to be deposited securely into the vaults of Citi Bank and the Federal Reserve, the uranium and critical aerospace assets were seized and transported to hidden military black sites, and the massive Iraqi oil fields were forcefully cleared of their local owners and drilling monopolies were permanently awarded to Halliburton, ExxonMobil, and Chevron.
The exact same imperial logic applies to the bandits and terrorists currently ravaging our rural communities. They may very well look you in the eye and tell you that they want to establish a pure Islamic state. But when the indigenous people are successfully uprooted from their resource-rich communities after relentless kidnappings, systemic torture, and public executions, the very same foreign conglomerates that secretly supply these terrorists with their thermal surveillance drones, high-grade military gear, encrypted satellite phones, and untraceable black-market cash quickly move in and start extracting these resources to be shipped overseas.
Wars are never genuinely fought on the superficial grounds of religion or ethnicity. They are, and have always been, ruthlessly fought over land, resources, and money.
In the case of Nigeria, Salafi Wahhabi Islamic ideology is what they use to brainwash and recruit most of the foot soldiers for this neo-colonial imperial plunder of Africa.
The removal of fuel subsidy in May 2023 was one of the most difficult economic decisions in Nigeria’s history, but it also unlocked resources that had previously been consumed by subsidy payments.
For years, Nigeria spent trillions of naira annually subsidizing petrol. While the policy kept fuel prices low, it significantly reduced the funds available for infrastructure, education, healthcare, security, and other critical sectors.
Since the subsidy was removed, revenue available for distribution through the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has increased substantially, allowing federal, state, and local governments to receive larger allocations. This has strengthened the fiscal capacity of many states to pay salaries, execute projects, and reduce debt obligations.
The policy also created fiscal space for new initiatives. The Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) was established to provide interest-free loans to eligible students in tertiary institutions, expanding access to higher education for thousands of young Nigerians.
Infrastructure spending has also gained momentum. The administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has continued work on major road projects, railway development, power sector investments, and strategic transportation corridors aimed at improving connectivity and supporting economic growth.
The resources previously spent on fuel subsidies can now be redirected toward long-term investments that benefit a larger segment of the population. The policy point to increased FAAC allocations, student loan implementation, compressed natural gas (CNG) programmes, and ongoing infrastructure projects as evidence of these benefits.
The fuel subsidy debate however reflects two realities at once: the short-term pain experienced by citizens and the long-term objective of redirecting public resources toward development. Whether history judges the policy as a success will depend on how effectively these additional revenues are transformed into visible improvements in infrastructure, education, healthcare, security, jobs, and overall quality of life.
Economic reforms are rarely popular in the moment. Their true value is measured by what they ultimately build.
HOW TINUBU HAS L00TED NIGERIA IN THE LAST THREE YEARS....
In The last 3 years Tinubu has looted Nigeria to stupor...
He has looted over $1.5 billion to complete the AKK gas project to industrialize the North....
He has looted over $500 million to build Agro processing plants Across 24 states..
He has looted almost N300 billion to fund the fees of over 1.6 million tertiary institution students across Nigeria...
He looted hundreds of billions of Naira to set up over 24 universities across Nigeria...
He has looted over N250 billion to build and renovate thousands of primary health centers across Nigeria...
He had looted over N6 trillion to employ hundreds of thousands of Nigerians in fixing thousands of kilometers of roads across Nigeria...
He has looted billions of dollars to expand Airports, seaports and dams across Nigeria including the over N80billion dam in Borno...
He has looted over N1.5 trillion and deposited it in Agric Bank for Farmers to use...
He has looted billions of Naira to install solar powers in universities, health institutions and rural communities...
He has looted billions of Naira to building the Kano Maradi railway project...
He has looted over $2billion to build fibre optics that would take internet connection to over 60% of Nigerians without internet access...
He has looted over N5trillion to pay for electricity used by Nigerians before his govt and within his govt....
He has looted over $7 billion to pay Airlines and other investors previous leaders refuse to pay...
He had looted over N27 trillions to settle the Ways and means printed to equally loot by previous leaders...
He has looted over $3billion to offset the debt previous leaders owed IMF....
He has looted billions of Naira to give Nigeria state of the art Cancer treatment centres across the 6 regions...
He has looted over N35trillion to pay soldiers, policemen, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Lab Scientists, immigrations, pensioners and millions of ordinary Nigerians....
The only thing Tinubu refused to loot is the already looted bra!ns of wailers...
In the coming years he should be filling their empt! heads with saw dust...
TINUBU Alooting Continua till 2031
I have a couple of friends within and outside Nigeria that are now fond of sharing every bad news about Nigeria with me especially from Instablog, Tunde Ednut and few others all in a bid to question my support for the President.
My response has been the same and quite effective.
- Where was your message when Nigeria recently eliminated the number 2 of ISWAP (globally) in addition to over 100 members in a collaboration with the US?
- Where was your message every time reports come out that thousands of terrorists have been eliminated in the Northeast by the military?
- Where was your message when Nigeria’s economy was listed among the highest growing economies in the world ahead of many of your favorite nations?
- Where was your message when students celebrated 3 years of no ASUU strike due to increased funding and the students loan?
- Where was your message when several citizens were celebrating improved infrastructural investments across the 36 states of the federation?
- Where was your message when state governors were praising the President for increased allocation which has stopped them from borrowing and helped pay salaries on time?
- Where was your message when Nigeria was removed from IMF list of debtors?
- Where was your message when companies that used to declare losses started declaring excess profits all over the place?
- Where was your message when Nigeria became a net exporter of petroleum products compared to years when we were the import king?
- Where was your message when leading credit rating companies started upgrading Nigeria’s rating after many decades?
- Where was your message when people were praising Tunji Ojo for making our passport applications easier than it has ever been in the country?
Why is it that you only remember to message me when bad things happen in the country? Have you been waiting for this opportunity simply because you didn’t like that choice of 2023?
Again, let nobody gaslight you ahead of 2027 due to recent developments that now sounds politically motivated. They have a right to focus on the criticisms and bad news while you have a right to focus on the positive ones while hoping for the best going forward.
It is a fight between those who want to take us back in time to the corrupt days when subsidy payments on fuel and forex ruled the economy.
A fight between those who just want their kinsman to become the President without any solid capacity and one that has proven overtime to be effective.
Their concerns must be duly noted but never get gaslighted by their claims on your choice. Come 2027, the only choice is to remain focused and return the one that has done the hard job which other presidents have ran away from simply because they want to win elections.
We will be there cos it will happen 😊.