Title: Fiscal Restructuring and Federal Structural Development In Nigeria Under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
Authors: Olufemi OLADOSU PhD, Segun Lakin ODERINDE PhD, Olukayode Adeyemi BABATOPE
Volume: 10
Issue: 9
Pages: 113-119
Publication Date: 2026/09/28
Abstract:
This study examines how fiscal restructuring under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has affected Nigeria's federal system, with particular attention to petrol-subsidy removal, the tax reform programme initiated in 2024 and enacted in 2025, revenue allocation, subnational fiscal autonomy, and equitable development. Anchored in fiscal federalism, the political economy of federalism, and New Institutional Economics, the study adopts an interpretivist qualitative documentary-analysis design. Purposively selected policy documents, fiscal reports, legislation, institutional assessments, and peer-reviewed studies covering May 2023 to March 2026 were analysed thematically. The findings show that the reforms increased nominal fiscal resources available through the Federation Account, strengthened incentives for domestic revenue mobilisation, and produced a more coherent tax-administration architecture. However, these gains have not amounted to full fiscal decentralisation. States and local governments remain structurally dependent on federally collected revenue; inflation and exchange-rate adjustment weakened the real value of higher transfers; and distributive disputes over Value Added Tax, derivation, and allocation criteria continue to shape intergovernmental relations. The July 2024 Supreme Court decision on local government financial autonomy widened the formal scope for grassroots fiscal accountability, but implementation remains institutionally contested. Overall, fiscal restructuring has generated significant but ambivalent consequences: its federal effects depend on constitutional rules, subnational institutional capacity, distributional politics, and the macroeconomic environment. The paper recommends constitutional and revenue-allocation reform, an explicit equalisation mechanism, stronger subnational internally generated revenue and public financial management, credible implementation of local government autonomy, and better-targeted social protection.