The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu says the significant economic reforms implemented by President Bola Tinubu exemplify a comprehensive political-economic strategy.
This strategy aims to establish Nigeria on three fundamental pillars: a credible currency, robust infrastructure, and a reliable supply of electricity.
In an article titled: “From Fragility to Foundations: Inside PBAT’s Political Economy,” Yakubu recalled how Nigeria’s Naira collapsed to ₦1,800 per dollar, rattling households and businesses alike in early 2024. By August 2025, it had strengthened to ₦1,525.
He said; “currency reform was the first bold stroke taken by President Tinubu, by floating the naira, clearing a $4 billion foreign exchange backlog, and bringing remittances into official channels, the government restored some measure of trust.”
The Director General said that “For traders, it meant fewer shocks when pricing goods. For students abroad, it meant less uncertainty over tuition. For investors, it meant a government that honoured obligations. The naira, long a burden to defend, began to look like a tool to deploy. Infrastructure has been Tinubu’s second lever.”
Yakubu further said that more than ₦5.9 trillion has gone into projects in the Northwest, and their benefits have rippled nationwide.
He said; “The Kaduna–Kano Expressway, Kano–Maiduguri Highway, and Sokoto–Illela Corridor cut travel times and lower costs for farmers and traders. Lagos, reframed as a logistics hub, connects northern produce to southern ports and eastern manufacturers to western markets. Concrete here is less a regional trophy than a national glue.
“The revival of the 255MW Kaduna Power Plant shows how electricity must animate infrastructure. For factories, kilowatts mean extra shifts and more jobs. For clinics, they mean functioning refrigerators for vaccines.
“For children, they mean studying under electric light rather than kerosene lamps. Renewables strengthen the justice dimension: solar irrigation in Zamfara demonstrates how energy can power farms and livelihoods as well as industry.”
The most ambitious vision is the Tinubu National Beltway, a Calabar–Maiduguri–Sokoto arc that redraws Nigeria’s map. But it is not alone. With work on the Badagry–Lagos expressway, the Illela–Sokoto corridor, and the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Super Highway, Tinubu is effectively sketching a square of dual carriageways across the federation.
The Beltway curves, the coastal and northern lines straighten — forming a lattice of asphalt that stabilises the country. It is geography turned into strategy: a deliberate grid that holds together Nigeria’s diversity, he said.
Yakubu said rather than being rivals President Tinubu continued to build on his predecessor, former President Muhammadu Buhari’s signature projects adding that the partnership was political continuity.
He said “Nigeria has a history of stalled projects and rising costs. Inflation bites households even as reforms strengthen exporters. Security looms as a constant threat — a rebuilt road can be rendered useless overnight by banditry. And without deeper financial markets, FX stability will remain vulnerable.”
The DG said Nigeria is on a course where economic geography and political coalition are bound together.