₦airaland Forum

by Malik Abdulganiy


President Bola Tinubu publicly wished several Nigerians a happy birthday this week — including Stella Okotete, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, Shola Oshunkeye, and Orji Uzor Kalu. Conspicuously missing from his list was Wale Edun, his minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy who clocked the landmark 70 on April 20.

A day later, he fired Edun from his cabinet.

But many Aso Rock insiders were not surprised by the turn of events — it was always coming.

“The president asked Edun to leave honourably in October last year but he lobbied to keep his position,” an insider told TheCable. “Although he stayed back, the president told his aides: ‘As far as I am concerned, I have done send-off for Wale already.’ But for some reason, Edun managed to hang on.”

Edun was effectively relegated thereafter, with Doris Uzoka-Anite, the junior minister, taking over three key functions from him: revenue generation, revenue distribution and domestic debt management.

That meant Edun could not longer oversee the monthly meeting of the federation account allocation committee (FAAC), although the January meeting chaired by Uzoka-Anite ended in chaos and a communique could not be issued for the first time.

Sensing that Uzoka-Anite may not be well suited for the job, the president appointed Taiwo Oyedele, a tax expert, as the new junior minister and redeployed her as minister of state, budget and economic planning.

That, nevertheless, did not save Edun from the sack.

He was to be fired two weeks ago, with a number of options considered as his replacement, including Zacchaeus Adedeji, executive chairman of the National Revenue Service (NRS), and Joseph Tegbe, chairman of the National Tax Policy Implementation Committee (NTPIC).

Some of Tinubu’s aides mounted pressure on the president but the plot failed for the second time.

Edun had stopped enjoying Tinubu’s confidence for a while, particularly after the payment of consultancy fees running into hundreds of billions of naira to a company whose ultimate beneficiary is a south-east governor who is always seen around the president.


THE CHAGOURY DISCONTENT

However, insiders told TheCable that the final straw was Edun’s failure to release some of the funds budgeted for the Lagos-Calabar coastal road and the Sokoto-Badagry super highway — two monumental projects being handled by Hitech Construction (Nig) Ltd.

Hitech is owned by the family of Gilbert Chagoury, who was explicitly listed as the president’s “confidante” when he attended the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, UAE, in December 2023, as a member of Nigeria’s delegation.

Insiders told TheCable that Edun often argued that there were no enough funds to service capital projects because of federal government’s expenditure priorities, namely debt service, salaries, and pensions. By the time these obligations are met, he argued, there was hardly anything left to share.

Before the removal of subsidy, the federal government had to borrow, through money printing by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to settle part of the wage bills.

Debt service gulped up to 95 percent of federal government revenue at a point in 2021.

Edun’s prioritisation of debt service, wage bills and overheads led to complaints by federal ministries, agencies and departments (MDAs) that they were not getting releases for capital projects.

Contractors are also being owed, leading to protests in Abuja and threats by the national assembly to sanction the finance ministry.

Aggrieved contractors carried out a mock funeral for Edun last year over the unpaid debts.

A video of Muhammad Ali Pate, coordinating minister of health and social welfare, went viral in February when he told the house committee on healthcare services that his ministry got only N36 million out of the N218 billion appropriated for the 2025 capital projects.

This is a general complaint among MDAs but — as the insider told TheCable — “the Chagourys think they deserve a better treatment given their special relationship with the president”.

Some of the most-trusted aides of the president never saw eye-to-eye with Edun because of the Chagoury issue and they played a key role in his final exit.


BUDGET SEMANTICS

In September 2025, Tinubu hosted founding members of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and The Buhari Organisation who were on a solidarity visit to him at the presidential villa.

He told them that the federal government had met its revenue target for the year by August and this was widely reported.

However, Edun appeared to have contradicted Tinubu three months later while appearing before the house of representatives committees on finance and national planning during an interactive session on the 2026-2028 medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) and fiscal strategy paper (FSP).

He said the federal government projected a revenue of N40.8 trillion for 2025 to fund the budget but “current performance” suggested it would likely end at about N10.7 trillion — meaning a shortfall of N30 trillion.

“The president was unhappy that Edun publicly contradicted him,” another insider told TheCable.

Edun was also said to have talked back at the president in the presence of other ministers at a cabinet meeting late last year.

“For someone who was already working on egg shells, this was a lot,” the insider added.

In October last year, reports surfaced online that Edun was seriously ill and had been flown abroad for emergency care, with Tinubu said to be shopping for his replacement.

Shortly after, the president’s media office announced that Edun was “indisposed” and would not be leading Nigeria’s team to the IMF/World Bank meetings.

However, Edun attended the Contemporary African Art Fair in London which coincided with the IMF/World Bank meetings and the pictures were widely shared in the media.

He also returned to Abuja shortly after, attending public functions and giving speeches.

This was seen as a subtle rebuttal of the claim that he was “indisposed”.

In 1999, Tinubu appointed Edun as commissioner for finance when he was governor of Lagos.

Edun resigned in February 2004, citing health grounds.

Racoon:
Wale Edun served in a government that hates the truth and paid for it with his reputation if he has any. Tinubu does not like truthful or clean people.

seunmsg:
This is part of the price you pay for serving at a time when the economy is extremely fragile and on life support. Wale Edun is an hardliner who wanted to stick to full implementation of the reforms no matter how painful and difficult things are. He gave priorities to debt servicing, payment of salaries and funding overhead. Capital budget implementation suffered and that was his major pitfall. What could he have done better?

In 2025, we had a budget of N54Trillion and barely generated N10Trillion. So, what magic can he use to fill that kind of gap? Like I have said severally on this forum, fiscal discipline is a big issue we must address if we want to move the country forward. Sadly, political interest and citizens expectations keep making the Executive and our lawmakers to pass crazy budgets that can't be implemented. In 2026, we have passed another N68Trillion budget that we all know can't be funded. National Assembly alone padded the 2026 budget with about N10Trillion through constituency projects. So, what magic do you want the Finance Minister to perform?

Racoon:
Wale Edun served in a government that hates the truth and paid for it with his reputation if he has any. Tinubu does not like truthful or clean people.

Babangidapikin:
A video of Muhammad Ali Pate, coordinating minister of health and social welfare, went viral in February when he told the house committee on healthcare services that his ministry got only N36 million out of the N218 billion appropriated for the 2025 capital projects. This is really bad especially for a ministry that keeps people alive. Although some people might argue that the Lagos Calabar Road is an Elephant 🐘 project, rather I see it as a project with future returns. Most people want to live by the Sea Side, although it is not a convenient project but it's okay. I think Government needs to recalibrate revenue opportunities. Block leakages, encourage the creation of more revenue generating industry especially among the GenZ's and ensure power is available and affordable. The Finance Minister did the right thing to advise Mr President, but most entrepreneurs we know prefer to focus on the goals and opportunities out there to maximise, and you agree with me that Mr President wants to run a Govepreneur .

Zoom95:
He has seen enough cash on