By *Dr Sunday Dare, Special Adviser, Media & Public Communication/Spokesperson to President Bola Tinubu*.
1. Fiscal, Macroeconomic and Legislative Reforms:
Fuel subsidy removal: This has helped plug leakages amounting to hundreds of billions of Naira annually.
FX transparency and stability: Various measures, including the introduction of the Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS) last December, have resulted in unprecedented stability, and in the clearance of billions of dollars in FX backlogs that discouraged foreign investment. According to the Nigerian Exchange Group, foreign capital inflow into the Nigerian Stock Exchange has risen from 4 percent in mid-2023 to an average of 16 percent at the end of 2024.
Oil and Gas reforms that in 2024 made Nigeria the most attractive destination for oil and gas investments in Africa, as well as attracting over $5 billion in signed investment commitments, known as Final Investment Decisions (FIDs).
Local Government Autonomy: In July 2024 the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling empowering local governments with a level of financial autonomy hitherto unseen in the history of our country. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has since empaneled an Inter-Ministerial Committee that will ensure the full enforcement of that judgement.
The NGX All Share Index ended 2024 with an annual growth of 37.65 percent, making it one of the best-performing stocks in the world in 2024.
2. Targeted Interventions:
Students Loan Fund – NELFUND has disbursed N32.8 billion to over 169,000 students (N20 Billion in school fees and N12.8 Billion in upkeep allowances)
Regional Development – President Bola Tinubu has signed Bills establishing Development Commissions for the North-Central, South-East, and North-West. President Tinubu has assented to the Bill establishing the Federal University of Environmental Technology in Ogoniland, as well as assented to the long-awaited Act for the Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State.
Healthcare – Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the significant sum of $1.07 billion in low-cost financing for Nigeria from the World Bank, under the Human Capital Opportunities for Prosperity and Equity (#HOPE) program.
Also, the Federal Government through the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is introducing targeted subsidies for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy in Nigeria, with each patient benefiting up to a value of N400,000.
Under the Presidential Initiative to Unlock the Healthcare Value Chain established by President Tinubu in 2023, over 70 new healthcare manufacturing companies are engaging in active discussions with international financiers concerning the execution of 22 large-scale investment projects across Nigeria.
Passport Reforms – A backlog of over 200,000 international passports was cleared within a 3-week period in 2024, in fulfilment of our pledge to improve the efficiency of government operations.
Compressed Natural Gas: The Tinubu Administration has directly invested and attracted over $450 million into the development of Nigeria’s Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) value chain, through the Presidential CNG Initiative. This has helped unlock additional private sector financing, and the results are emerging speedily: from seven CNG conversion centres in Nigeria in 2023, we now have over 150 across the country and counting.
3. Infrastructure:
Nigeria is a vast construction site under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. At the last Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, just last week, over 2.5 Trillion Naira worth of road infrastructure projects were approved – which is unprecedented in the history of our country:
N1.334 trillion for additional sections of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
N470.9 billion and N148 billion for the access roads to the Second Niger Bridge from Delta and Anambra States, respectively.
N195 billion for the reconstruction of Phase 2, Section 1 of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF)
*PART 2 COMING!*
