Nigeria's Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, has challenged the Nigerian media to rally behind President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's far-reaching economic reforms. He made the call at the Senate Press Corps Capacity-Building Workshop in Abuja, where he urged journalists to subject the national budget to rigorous scrutiny while providing the public with the context necessary to understand the government's economic direction.
The workshop, themed "Leveraging Legislative Oversight and Media Collaboration to Safeguard the National Budget from Unlawful Insertion," aimed to promote collaboration between the media and the legislature in ensuring transparency and accountability in the budget-making process. Bagudu emphasized that the media had a critical responsibility to deepen public understanding of the Tinubu administration's fiscal policies.
Bagudu's intervention placed President Tinubu's reform programme at the centre of the nation's budget debate, insisting that Nigeria could not continue operating with limited fiscal resources while expecting government to close massive infrastructure and human-capital gaps. He said the country's ambition to build a $1 trillion economy demanded bold decisions on revenue mobilisation, expenditure and investment.
The Minister argued that the choices confronting the administration must be understood against the backdrop of Nigeria's enormous development needs, stressing that the Tinubu government's Renewed Hope Agenda was designed to confront longstanding structural problems. He said the media must therefore help Nigerians understand why the administration had embarked on difficult economic measures and why sustained public confidence remained important to their implementation.
Bagudu acknowledged that the reforms had contributed to cost-of-living pressures but maintained that they were necessary to strengthen public finances and lay the foundation for sustainable and inclusive growth. He urged journalists to interrogate budget provisions thoroughly rather than automatically branding unfamiliar projects as irregular insertions.
The Minister also rejected the notion that recurrent expenditure was automatically less valuable than capital spending, arguing that investments in security, education, healthcare and human capital could have direct developmental consequences. He charged journalists to help bring the choices confronting the country to the centre of public debate and ensure that Nigerians understand both the costs and intended objectives of the government's reform programme.
Key points
- Bagudu urges media to support Tinubu's economic reforms by providing context to Nigerians.
- Nigeria aims to build a $1 trillion economy, requiring bold decisions on revenue mobilisation and expenditure.
- Reforms have contributed to cost-of-living pressures but are necessary for sustainable growth.
