The Federal Government will soon publish details of how savings from the removal of fuel subsidy have been spent, even as it disclosed that the funds have largely gone into servicing rising debt and funding increased government spending.
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this on Wednesday, 29July, 2026 at the African Emerging Markets Forum in Abuja, as government officials continued to defend reforms blamed for worsening living conditions nationwide.
Oyedele said fuel subsidies and an implicit foreign-exchange subsidy had cost Nigeria roughly five per cent of GDP before their removal.
He said part of the savings had been absorbed by higher debt-servicing costs, with borrowing rates rising to as much as 24 per cent from about eight per cent before the reforms.
The minister added that the government’s wage bill nearly doubled after the minimum wage was more than doubled to ₦70,000 ($51) a month. Spending had also increased on an education loan programme providing tuition support and monthly stipends to over 1.5 million students, he said.
On calls for accountability over the subsidy savings, Oyedele admitted the concern was legitimate, noting that he had been asked the question repeatedly and considered it a fair one to raise.
He rejected a recent IMF assessment that millions of Nigerians remained in poverty despite the reforms, arguing that a temporary decline in real incomes was inevitable after subsidy removal, even as investors had welcomed the changes.
Oyedele said the government would instead track progress through multidimensional poverty, real per-capita income growth and income inequality, rather than headline GDP growth alone.
