When Zacch Adedeji settled into the studio for Channels Television’s Sunday Politics on the night of August 9, most viewers probably expected the usual back-and-forth: a government official defending unpopular policies, a host pressing him on the cost of living, and the conversation moving on by the next day.

Instead, Adedeji came with charts.

The Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service walked viewers through figures comparing Nigeria’s economic position in 2023 with where he believes the country is today. There were numbers on GDP growth, inflation, the exchange rate, interest rates, foreign reserves, public debt and oil production. He also made a case for Nigeria’s current petrol prices.

It was, in many ways, an attempt to tell the story of the Tinubu administration through numbers.

But behind all the charts was another question: how much of the picture do those numbers really capture?

The case Adedeji was making

Adedeji’s central argument was not entirely new.

In April, he said Nigeria’s inflation could have risen to between 75 and 120 per cent without the economic reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration, particularly the removal of the petrol subsidy and the unification of the exchange rate.

On Sunday, he made much the same argument, this time with a fresh set of figures.

One of the slides shown during the interview compared Nigeria’s position in May 2023 with what it described as the country’s mid-2026 position.

GDP growth, according to the presentation, had moved from a 2023 average of 2.74 per cent to 3.9 per cent in the first half of 2026.

Headline inflation, which stood at 22.2 per cent in April 2023, was presented at 15.9 per cent in 2026.

The exchange-rate comparison showed the official rate moving from ₦463–₦700 to the dollar under the old multiple-window system to ₦1,360 under the unified market.

The Monetary Policy Rate had also risen, from 18.5 per cent to 26.5 per cent.

But the figure that probably stood out most was foreign reserves.

Adedeji’s slide showed unencumbered external reserves at $3.99 billion in the 2023 baseline and $51.9 billion in 2026, which it described as a 17-year high.

Then there was the debt picture.

Nigeria’s total public debt was put at ₦87.4 trillion, or 38 per cent of GDP, in the 2023 comparison. By 2026, the debt figure had risen to ₦159.28 trillion, even though the debt-to-GDP ratio had fallen to 32.3 per cent.

Adedeji described this as the first sustained decline in the ratio in more than a decade.

The presentation also showed crude oil production and condensate increasing from about 1.2–1.3 million barrels per day to 1.73 million barrels per day by July 2026.

Put together, the message was clear: the reforms have been painful, but they have also changed some of Nigeria’s economic numbers.

Then came the petrol price comparison

Adedeji also used the interview to make a case for Nigeria’s current petrol prices.

According to another slide shown during the programme, petrol in Nigeria was priced at about $0.90 per litre, compared with $1.08 in the United States, $1.17 in India and $1.26 in South Africa.

The global average was put at $1.50 per litre.

The slide therefore described Nigeria’s pump price as 63 per cent below the global average.

Adedeji attributed this partly to increased domestic refining and the government’s sale-of-crude-in-naira arrangement with local refiners.

Again, the point was to show that some of the changes introduced by the government are beginning to produce results.

Where the conversation got uncomfortable

The numbers were one thing. The reality Nigerians are living with was another.

When Adedeji was pressed on the gap between the government’s economic figures and what ordinary Nigerians are experiencing, he did not deny that people are struggling.

Instead, he tried to change the way the reforms should be judged.

His argument was basically that things could have been much worse without the reforms. In other words, the current hardship should be considered alongside the alternative that might have existed if the government had done nothing.

It is an argument governments often make when defending difficult economic decisions.

But it is not always an easy one to sell to someone trying to buy food, pay rent or get to work.

People living through the present are more concerned about what is happening now than about how much worse things might have been.

They want to know when the situation they are actually experiencing will improve.

And then the conversation moved to Tinubu

Interestingly, the part of the interview that generated some of the strongest reactions was not the GDP figures or the foreign-reserve numbers.

It was Adedeji’s comments about President Bola Tinubu’s personal habits.

When asked about government officials and the perception of extravagance in government, Adedeji said the President mostly walks from his residence to his office, eats once a day, and had not travelled abroad in the preceding three months.

When the conversation turned to the size of the presidential convoy, he asked how much a Cadillac Escalade costs.

Those comments quickly became a talking point online.

For many Nigerians, however, the issue was bigger than whether the President eats once or twice a day.

At a time when food, transport and rent remain major concerns for households, the comments risked sounding disconnected from the question many people wanted answered: what is the government doing to make life easier for ordinary Nigerians?

The President’s personal habits may say something about him, but they do not really answer questions about government spending or the wider cost-of-living crisis.

And that appeared to be where some of the conversation was lost.

So, do the numbers check out?

Broadly, the direction of the story is supported by available economic data, although the exact figures depend on the period and definition being used.

Foreign reserves have risen substantially from the levels seen after the 2023 reforms. Inflation has also fallen from its peak, even though the current rate remains high enough to continue putting pressure on households.

GDP growth has strengthened, while oil production has also improved.

Government revenue collections have risen sharply as well. The NRS reported ₦28.3 trillion in revenue in 2025, up from ₦21.7 trillion in 2024, and set a ₦40.7 trillion target for 2026.

That increase is important for a country that has struggled with weak domestic revenue for years.

But this is where the numbers need some context.

A lower debt-to-GDP ratio does not mean Nigeria’s actual debt has fallen. In Adedeji’s own presentation, the debt figure rose from ₦87.4 trillion to ₦159.28 trillion even as the ratio declined.

So both things can be true at the same time: the debt-to-GDP ratio can improve while the government’s actual debt burden continues to grow.

The same goes for revenue.

Collecting more money is important, particularly for a country that has struggled with weak domestic revenue for years. But higher revenue collection does not automatically mean better roads, functioning hospitals, reliable electricity or cheaper food.

Those are the things ordinary Nigerians are more likely to look at when deciding whether the economy is actually improving.

The bigger picture:
Perhaps what Sunday night’s interview really showed was the distance between the government’s economic figures and the way many Nigerians experience the economy.

The government has numbers it can point to.

Some of them are genuinely encouraging. Foreign reserves are stronger. Inflation has come down from its peak. GDP growth has improved, oil production has risen, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is lower.

But macroeconomic stability is not the same thing as prosperity.

That is the difficult part of the government’s message.

For an NRS chairman whose job revolves around numbers, presenting the charts may be the easy part. The harder task is convincing Nigerians that the improvements being recorded on those charts will eventually show up in their own lives.

Because outside the studio, Nigerians have their own economic indicators.

The price of rice.

The cost of transport.

The rent.

The electricity bill.

And, perhaps most importantly, how much money is left after all of them have been paid.

Those are the numbers Nigerians are watching.

Written by Seun Oloketuyi