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Import Bans, Empty Boasts and Economic Delusion: Tinubu’s Recipe for Nigeria’s Economic Disaster
Import Bans, Empty Boasts and Economic Delusion: Tinubu’s Recipe for Nigeria’s Economic Disaster
By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Sahara Weekly Nigeria
When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared that banning the importation of foreign goods would “revive” Nigeria’s economy, one would think the man had a Nobel Prize in economic policy. Instead, what we get is textbook delusion coming from a self-proclaimed “first-class accountant” from Chicago State University, a claim with no official transcript, certificate or academic record in public view to validate it. In a time when Nigeria urgently needs innovative, export-driven policies, Tinubu is trying to build an economic miracle on import bans, slogans and the illusion of industrial rebirth in a country plagued by power failure, insecurity and corruption.
The Import Ban Illusion
Let’s start with the cold, hard facts. NIGERIA is not an INDUSTRIAL NATION. According to World Bank data (2024), manufacturing contributes less than 9% to Nigeria’s GDP. The country imports over 80% of its essential goods, including food, pharmaceuticals, refined petroleum and machinery. In such a context, banning imports without ensuring local capacity is not “patriotic policy” but economic sabotage.
Tinubu’s administration recently restricted the importation of over 40 items, including rice, cement, toothpicks and even poultry products. His argument? Local production must be encouraged. The problem, however, is that there’s no infrastructure to support that ambition. As of Q1 2025, Nigeria still suffers from epileptic electricity supply, averaging just 4,000 MW for over 200 million people, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission. For comparison, South Africa, with a population of 62 million, produces over 45,000 MW (Eskom, 2024 data).
No economy thrives under darkness. You cannot ban the importation of toothpicks and expect bamboo to magically morph into industry without electricity, investment or skilled labor.
Failed Economic Patriotism
The Tinubu administration is recycling the failed policies of past governments. We saw this playbook under former President Muhammadu Buhari, another disciple of economic isolationism. The Central Bank of Nigeria, under Godwin Emefiele, banned 41 items from forex access, yet inflation soared, local substitutes remained expensive and smuggling boomed. The result? Nigeria became the poverty capital of the world in 2018.
Tinubu is repeating that cycle. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), food inflation stood at 40.53% as of April 2025, with staple items like rice, bread and oil becoming unaffordable for millions. The average Nigerian is now spending over 70% of their income on food—a clear indicator of economic dysfunction.
“The idea that a country can simply ban its way to prosperity is not just misguided; it’s reckless” said Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, former Deputy Governor of the CBN. “You need to create an enabling environment not a restrictive one. Industrialization thrives on productivity not prohibitions.”
A Mouthful of Academic Fraud?
While the economic policy is bad enough, the president’s intellectual credentials are also under serious scrutiny. Tinubu continues to tout his supposed “first-class” status from Chicago State University (CSU). Yet the institution, under subpoena in 2023, confirmed Tinubu did not graduate with honors and discrepancies exist between submitted documents and university records.
As Nigerian lawyer and public affairs analyst Dele Farotimi noted during a Channels TV interview:
“We are being governed by ghosts, people with no verifiable history, no transparency, yet they want to dictate economic truths to over 200 million people.”
How can a man who allegedly forged his way through academic corridors be trusted to engineer genuine economic transformation?
Export, Not Ban: The Real Path to Growth
Rather than banning imports, any serious leader would focus on boosting non-oil exports, supporting SMEs and fixing power, roads and insecurity. For instance, Vietnam (once as poor as Nigeria) embraced export-led growth. According to the International Monetary Fund, Vietnam’s exports in 2023 stood at $371 billion, compared to Nigeria’s paltry $67 billion, 85% of which was crude oil.
In the words of Professor Pat Utomi, political economist and founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership:
“We don’t have a productive economy; we have a transactional economy. Until we invest in human capital, reduce power costs and create policies that invite rather than repel investment, we will keep declining.”
Tinubu’s Propaganda Economics
Let’s also talk about perception. Tinubu’s administration spends more time defending economic disaster than solving it. The presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, recently claimed that the economy is “on track” and that “Nigerians should endure.” This while the naira trades at ₦1,580 to $1 on the official market and youth unemployment hovers at 53.4% (NBS Q1 2025 report).
The government is delusional and more obsessed with optics than outcomes. The average Nigerian doesn’t care about economic jargon. They care about whether they can afford a bag of rice, fuel their car, pay school fees and stay safe.
As Nigerian writer and columnist Gimba Kakanda aptly wrote:
“The tragedy of Nigeria’s leadership is that they see national sacrifice as something the people alone must endure, while they dine on luxury.”
No Vision, No Results
To put it bluntly: Tinubu’s administration is a regime without vision. Import bans are the policies of lazy governments & those without the courage to compete, reform or innovate. These are leaders who cannot think beyond customs tariffs and control levers.
We’ve seen this movie before. In 1984, Buhari as military Head of State implemented similar bans. Nigeria became a nation of smugglers. In 2015, he repeated it. The economy crashed. Now Tinubu is borrowing from that same dusty playbook.
Even in India, a country once famous for import substitution, policymakers have long since abandoned that model in favor of “Make in India” a strategy built on exports, competitiveness and infrastructure.
What Nigeria needs is a Productive Economy and not a prohibited one.
The Final Blow: A Dangerous Gamble
Tinubu’s economic policy is not just wrong but it’s dangerous. Banning imports without providing alternatives is a betrayal of the masses. It punishes consumers, stifles innovation and invites corruption at the borders.
The president wants applause for forcing Nigerians to buy inferior, expensive local goods they don’t want, while politicians and their families still travel abroad for healthcare, holidays and education. What hypocrisy.
Nigeria deserves better. We deserve a leader with real academic credibility, real economic vision and real empathy, not one obsessed with clinging to propaganda while the nation bleeds.
As Chinua Achebe once warned: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a FAILURE of LEADERSHIP.”
And Bola Ahmed Tinubu is living proof of that FAILURE…first-class in name only, and utterly bankrupt in strategy.
NNPCL and Corruption’s Final Throes
By Pius Olasanmi
In the twilight of the Obasanjo administration, when Nigerians were still capable of being outraged, when Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of refineries was a buzzword that still held some mysticism to bamboozle citizens, during a conversation, a certain man said something profound. The man said, “As a businessman, if I were the owner of these refineries, knowing that they are three decades old, I would take the last money I have, hire bulldozers, raze them to the ground, and obtain loans to build new ones.”
When we pressed him further on why he would engage in such waste, he explained that repairing the refineries is the real waste. He explained that even if the TAM were honestly carried out, a thirty-year-old refinery would never compete favourably with a new one that would integrate contemporary technology. Operating at its best, such a refinery would never be comparatively more efficient. It is therefore pointless to have spent another one naira on the refineries at that point.
A few months later, I had a conversation with a then-lawmaker on an entirely different matter. I mentioned that the National Assembly has failed by not crafting legislation that would criminalise and punish public office holders who foist wrong decisions on the country. The logic: a public office holder need not steal to be punished, wrong decisions should attract penalties for an office holder who opts for the worst of all options when there are less injurious ones.
These established premises speak to the ongoing nauseating efforts at revisionism by those who wrecked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and its previous iteration, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Notably, this campaign to rewrite history is traceable to Engineer Mele Kolo Kyari, the disgraced immediate past Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL and his hirelings. They have suffocated the news and the public opinion space with even more lies than they spun while in office.
The Saint Kyari campaign is anchored on convincing Nigerians that the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna Refineries were fully functional when he was booted out of office. So brazen is the campaign that one of its talking heads challenged the group chief executive officer (GCEO), Engr. Bayo Ojulari, to “inform Nigerians categorically what happened to the functioning refineries he inherited from his predecessor, Engr. Mele Kyari.” The effrontery.
We have not forgotten so soon the charade that followed the baffling claim that Nigeria has spent $2.8 billion on the repair of the refineries, while they are not churning out even a single litre of refined product among them. Saint Kyari and his goons played all manner of tricks, all of which embarrassed President Bola Tinubu, who had counted on ticking off the return to productivity of the refineries as part of his achievements, only to realise that he was deceived into celebrating phantoms. Tragic.
Lest we forget, 200 trucks were arranged as props in a well-directed video clip to celebrate the re-streaming of the Port Harcourt Refinery. The disappointment. Nigerians were to learn from several reports that the Port Harcourt refinery was not producing and was instead using old, stored petroleum products to load trucks. Worse still, the Kyari crew was passing off sanction-tainted Russian-sourced crude oil refined in Malta as locally refined products. More insult was piled on the assault on our collective sensibility with the lies that the Port Harcourt Refinery exported semi-finished products. Brazen.
Meanwhile, Kyari and his hirelings called those who pointed out or protested these glaring scams all manner of names. They hid behind industry technicalities and jargon to create the impression that those of us who knew Nigerians were being robbed did not understand what we were saying. The point remains that a $2.8 billion investment can potentially build a refinery with a capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). Of course, the actual capacity of such a refinery will depend on various factors, including the complexity of the refinery, the technology used, and the location. That is the amount that Kyari’s regime at the NNPCL took and did not give Nigerians refined products.
Fast forward to Kyari’s sack and the appointment of Engineer Bayo Ojulari, who has demonstrated that things can indeed be done differently. Kyari’s exit was expectedly followed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) going after him and his associates. The extent of the theft is better understood against the backdrop of N80 billion being found in the bank account of one of his associates. They went on the run.
Perhaps because the EFCC was biding its time on securing international warrants for the arrests of these characters on the lam, they have become emboldened. They have decided to fight back and rewrite the story of their participation in the greatest fraud against Nigerians. Engineer Ojulari’s renewed mindset, which is entrenching a semblance of the transparency Nigerians demand, became their natural target. The demons that once roamed around the corporation came out with malevolence. They started spinning stories of corruption to tarnish the incumbent who refused to hide their crimes. The objective: bring Ojulari down. But alas, he is winning the war as it stands.
His innocence is proven, and it is glaring that those who want him out are mere charlatans who can no longer ply their corrupt wares because of the impact of the new reforms. Corruption in the NNPCL is in its final throes. The fake news being unleashed against the incumbent leadership is akin to corruption’s last kicks as reforms in the sector strangulate it and its practitioners. The reforms must take place in the NNPCL, whether the industry demons like it or not.
As a parting shot, Kyari and his associates would do well to prepare their defence. In addition to accounting for the $2.8 billion they laundered in the name of repairing the moribund refineries, they must also answer for the poor decision to fix that which is irretrievably broken. Awarding contracts for Turn Around Maintenance of 59-year-old refineries that a right-thinking person had suggested should be demolished almost twenty years ago, when they were only 30 years old, is criminal. Trying to deceive Nigerians that the fake repairs worked is treason.
Olasanmi is a public affairs analyst writing from Lagos.
GRANDIS 5STAR LUXURY APARTMENT & SUITES SET TO REDEFINE LIVING IN VICTORIA ISLAND
Set to Rise elegantly against the Lagos skyline, is the Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites. According to Adejuwon Ademola, The General Manager of the Development company, it is more than just a residential building
“it’s a lifestyle statement. Standing 17 floors high in the heart of Victoria Island, this revolutionary masterpiece of modern architecture will offer a panoramic 360° view of Eko Atlantic, Victoria Island, and Ikoyi, transforming every apartment into an exclusive penthouse experience for the world’s most discerning elite.”
Developed by Dumarco Construction Limited, a globally acclaimed company with decades of delivering complex, high-value projects in the highly regulated petroleum, oil, and gas industries, Grandis 5Star brings unmatched international safety standards, uncompromising quality, and timeless elegance into Nigeria’s luxury property market.
> “When you live in Grandis, you’re not just buying a home—you’re investing in peace of mind, world-class safety, and an effortless luxury experience that will remain pristine for decades,” says Adejuwon A. Ademola, General Manager of Dumarco Construction Limited.
The Gold Standard in Safety and Quality
Dumarco’s roots in the oil and gas sector mean the company operates to some of the strictest safety protocols in the world. Every stage—from conceptualization, design, construction, to long-term maintenance—follows internationally accepted procedures and quality assurance measures. Cutting corners is simply not in Dumarco’s vocabulary.
> “In the oil and gas industry, there’s no room for compromise. We’ve brought that same discipline and zero-tolerance for mediocrity into property development,” says Ademola. “That’s why Grandis will be one of the safest and most enduring residential developments in Nigeria.”
To ensure transparency and prevent (project complacency), Dumarco deliberately separates the developer, contractor, and consultant roles, engaging only the most competent professionals in each respective field. Dumarco’s project team includes globally recognized contractors such as Julius Berger, Cappa & D’Alberto, and Elalan, Migliore Construczione & Tecniche (MC&T) and their partners VENCO IMTIAZ CONTRACTING COMPANY (VICC) based in Dubai, UAE, Business Contracting Limited, alongside leading consultants like Morgan Omanitan & Abe, LAMBERT, and James Cubitt.
Grandis – Investments, appreciation, returns and profitability
Our selection process for the location of the project alone was pains-taking and completely thorough scientific process. Top professional companies were employed to conduct a scientific data acquisition and analytical survey of the entire Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki and Eko Atlantic before a project site is selected. Analyzing and acquiring areas developmental charts and trends, studying and gathering historical and present sale prices, rental charge and occupancy rates over a 50 year period from every individual street before the selection of the location of any of our developments especially true for the Grandis Project
He adds,
“Our clients and residents can be rest assured that the location of Grandis has been scientifically proven through all existing data to provide our clients with a 100% occupancy rate, highest developmental location, highest rental income and investment returns. ”
The Grandis Experience
Located minutes away from international corporate headquarters, embassies, and landmarks such as Eko Hotel, Radisson Blu, and the Radisson Red, Grandis offers unmatched convenience for professionals, diplomats, and high-net-worth individuals. Every residence is designed for both indulgence and efficiency, with high-grade finishes, smart-home systems, and private amenities that ensure seamless living.
From sunrise over the Atlantic to the glittering Lagos night skyline, residents will enjoy uninterrupted luxury, supported by discreet and highly trained staff, advanced security systems, and a design that prioritizes comfort and privacy.
> “We designed Grandis for people who want everything—security, elegance, convenience, and the assurance that their home will look as spectacular in 20 years as it does on day one,” Ademola notes.
A Legacy That Lasts
With its combination of visionary architecture, peerless safety, and meticulous maintenance planning, Grandis is built to remain iconic for generations. Thanks to Dumarco’s meticulous approach, the building’s service charges are expected to remain low while its value and appeal continue to appreciate over time.
In a market often marred by shortcuts and substandard practices, Mr Ademola says
Grandis stands as a beacon of what luxury living should be—safe, spectacular, and built to last.
“Grandis 5Star Luxury Apartment & Suites — Where safety meets sophistication, and every detail is designed for a life well-lived.”
He added
Website -www.dumarcoltd.com
Project website – www.26idowutaylor.com
Email [email protected]
Tel / WhatsApp +234 9077777883
GM – Adejuwon A. Ademola
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