AS the first full year of President Tinubu’s administration, 2024 has come with its unique share of challenges and triumphs. As we look back at the ongoing year, this is the perfect time to reflect on the President’s vision for a transformed Nigeria and how 2024 has provided numerous opportunities to manifest that vision.
On so many fronts, the outgoing year has brought significant policy and legislative milestones that are helping to cement the very foundations of the President’s grand vision for Nigeria. Take the examples of the Students Loan Fund and the Consumer Credit Corporation, two institutions targeted at putting more resources in the pockets of the Nigerian people, empowering them to turn their dreams into opportunities.
With the Students Loan Fund, we are seeing, for the first time in decades, Nigerian students at tertiary level, getting targeted federal assistance to pursue their academic ambitions, through long-term loans (and stipends) that are designed to not be burdensome in any way. In less than one year, more than 300,000 Nigerian students have already benefited.
With the Consumer Credit scheme, we are seeing affordable financing being made available to workers, to enable them afford life’s necessities. Every developed country is built around a functioning credit system that fuels consumer spending and translates into economic growth. Nigeria is now finally on that path.
Also in 2024, we also saw the first steps in the implementation of a new electricity framework in the country, conferring the State governments with greater agency and responsibility. Building on a recent constitutional amendment, the President signed into law the 2024 Electricity Act that is now guiding a pioneering set of States into rolling out their own regulated electricity markets.
Indeed, for Nigeria to be truly able to achieve economic development, we must allow the subnational governments more room for real economic impact. With the new Electricity Act, States can now play a much bigger role in attracting investments into on-grid and off-grid solutions, ensuring that more electricity gets to more Nigerians.
This concept of giving more power and opportunities to the States is one of the defining governing philosophies of President Tinubu – as Governor of Lagos two decades ago he was one of the leading advocates of true federalism in Nigeria. Now, as President, he has not abandoned those ideals. In July 2024 we saw the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court, empowering local governments to an extent we have not seen in our recent history. The President has since empaneled an Inter-Ministerial Committee that will ensure the full enforcement of that judgement.
For the state governments, President Tinubu’s economic reforms have triggered a dramatic surge in revenues, which is allowing the States to do more for their people. The last FAAC meeting saw the sharing of a record 1.727 Trillion Naira amongst the three tiers of government. These resources are meant to deliver bigger dividends of development to Nigerians.
For those who have taken the effort to be familiar with the ongoing tax reforms, the Bills currently before the National Assembly also represent another fiscal boon for the subnational governments, with the Federal government choosing for example to take an even smaller portion of VAT than it currently gets.
The Presidential Initiative on CNG marked its first year of implementation recently, with the number of vehicle conversion centers in the country rising from fewer than 10 to more than 120. The goal is to make CNG a fuel of choice for private and commercial transportation in Nigeria, bringing down costs by as much as 50 to 60 percent. We are already seeing enthusiastic uptake of the initiative, and the government is supporting this by way of fiscal incentives and subsidized conversions.
The year is closing with the massive news of the final investment decision (FID) by Shell and its partners on the Bonga North deep offshore oil project, which is Nigeria’s first deep offshore FID in over a decade. This FID was preceded by the one by Total and NNPC Limited on the 300 million cubic feet per day Ubeta gas project. Together these two projects represent over 5 billion dollars in investment value.
These long-awaited investment decisions have now finally happened because the investors behind them can see, from the President’s policies and actions, that Nigeria is truly serious and ready for oil and gas investment. A series of presidential directives issued at the beginning of 2024 have unleashed the biggest wave of investor interest in our country’s energy sector in a while.
in 2024, our security forces neutralized more than 8,000 terrorists and bandits, and arrested 11,600 others, with more than 10,000 weapons recovered. Additionally, about 8,000 kidnap victims were successfully rescued. The goal is to keep driving down the numbers of victims, while scaling up efforts to make crime and criminality unattractive in Nigeria.
On the foreign affairs front, the 2024 has been a most encouraging year, despite several challenging geopolitical developments around the world, including in our corner of West Africa. This year Nigeria was awarded the hosting rights for the new African Energy Bank, which will prove to be game-changing for energy financing in Africa. As we reposition ourselves to be a global energy hub, this is a most fitting complement.
Nigeria is asserting itself as a country that cannot be ignored on the global stage. In 2024, President Tinubu hosted heads of State and/or government from India, the world’s largest democracy, and from Germany, Europe’s largest economy.
He was welcomed on a State Visit to France, at a very exciting time in the history of mutually-beneficial relations between Nigeria and France. Nigeria was specially invited to the G20 Summit for the second consecutive year running, and we forged deeper relations with South Africa through our joint presidential binational commission.
As we step into a new year, during which we will mark the second anniversary of the Tinubu Administration, we will surely see even more of the positive outcomes of the President’s reforms, in infrastructure, agriculture, security, healthcare, education, creative and digital economy and many other areas. The tax reforms, when passed into law and assented to, will cut personal and corporate income taxes for tens of millions of Nigerians, while also expanding VAT exemptions.
Consumer credit and student loans will reach many more people. Important indices such as foreign reserves position, trade surplus, oil production, and GDP growth are set to continue rising, even as greater work going into permanently taming inflation. The 2025 budget – the very fittingly-themed “Budget of Restoration: Securing Peace, Rebuilding Prosperity” – is a convincing pointer of the federal government’s commitment to maintaining the positive course in which we are headed as a nation.
We will continue to seek the understanding of Nigerians on this journey of, in the President’s words in the 2025 budget speech, “economic renewal and institutional development.” The sacrifices will all surely be rewarded, and we shall surely and steadily advance towards our desired destination – a country where a progressively better life will be guaranteed for everyone, regardless of where in the country they happen to reside. Under President Tinubu’s watch, 2025 will represent a leap forward, towards that deserved destination.
– Idris, fnipr, is the Minister of Information and National Orientation.