BY CHIKA OKEKE, Abuja
Nigerians are set to witness shared prosperity as the Federal Government has devised measures to trim down Headline inflation to a single digit, reduce poverty and deepen agricultural interventions to bring down the prices of food in the market.
This is in addition to achieving a unified exchange rate, prioritising spending in the most impactful areas, partnering with the States and Local Governments, and extending macro-economic gains into meaningful impact for every household.
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate crashed to 15.43 per cent in July 2026, down from 15.91 per cent recorded in June, as captured in the Consumer Price Index, CPI, report released on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.
But the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, while presenting Nigeria’s Reform Scorecard titled “The Benefits, Costs and Harm Prevented,” on Wednesday in Abuja, stated that the tax-to-GDP ratio will keep climbing.
Nigeria's tax-to-GDP ratio has risen to approximately 13 percent in 2026, up from below 10 percent, a performance linked to fiscal reforms, increased digitalisation and revenue mobilisation.
Oyedele said that the Federal Government will continue the implementation of the Nigeria Tax Act while initiating further fiscal reforms aimed at addressing challenges in the budgeting, reporting and accountability systems.
President Bola Tinubu had on Wednesday ordered a comprehensive forensic investigation of Federal Government's administrative, accounting and payroll systems, citing the discovery of additional fake government agencies by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC.
According to the Minister, the investigation would examine the processes, procedures and internal control weaknesses that enabled a fake body known as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council and other fictitious agencies to penetrate the Federal Government’s administrative system.
He said: “For the past three years, the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has embarked on major reforms to address age-long economic challenges — the removal of a fuel subsidy that was quietly bankrupting the country, and the unification of an exchange rate system that had become a source of arbitrage, distortion and corruption rather than stability.
“Those decisions came at a real cost, and we are not here to pretend otherwise. Prices rose. The naira adjusted sharply. Households and businesses felt it, and many still do. We are calling this Nigeria’s Reform Scorecard, and it is built to be read honestly, regardless of whether you agree with the reforms.”
Oyedele pointed out that savings from fuel subsidy removal and foreign exchange harmonisation increased accretion to the Federation Account through higher oil and non-oil receipts, and reduced encumbrances on future revenue.
“We established the level of revenue pre-reform, as well as the growth trend in the three to five years preceding the reform, and compared this to revenue post-reform to determine the savings,” he added.
He disclosed that Nigeria’s foreign reserves stood at $52.5 billion between June 2023 and December 2025, while the Stock market capitalisation surged to ₦150 trillion in two years.
“Gross foreign reserves stand at $52.5 billion, up from around $35 billion, while net reserves have moved from roughly $3 billion to $34.8 billion - a far more meaningful measure of our actual buffer.
“The stock market has grown from about ₦31trillion to roughly ₦150 trillion in capitalisation. Real GDP growth has strengthened to 3.89 percent, against a baseline of 2.31 percent and a no-reform estimate that had us at best stagnant and at worst in recession.
“S&P Global upgraded our sovereign credit rating to ‘B’ in May - our first upgrade in fourteen years,” he said.
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