The Morning Show: Tinubu Pushes Global Finance and Maritime Security Reform At Africa Summit

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:05]First off, President Batinubu on Tuesday called for reform of the global financial system, saying high borrowing costs were constraining Africa's industrial development. At the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, Tinubu said the current financial architecture limited access to affordable long-term capital and kept African economies dependent on raw commod commodity exports. He said Nigeria would spend about 11.6 billion on debt servicing in 2026. Nearly half of projected revenue, warning that rising repayment costs were crowding out investment in infrastructure and industry. Tinubu also said Africa's oceans should be secure and better governed to attract investment into the blue economy, pledging that Nigeria would expand regional maritime cooperation by offering its deep blue project intelligence infrastructure as a shared platform for Gulf of Guinea states. The summit co-chared by French President Emanuel Mur and Kenyan President William R brought together heads of state, policy makers, investors and business leaders to also deliberate on key issues including energy transition, industrialization, digital transformation, climate action and reforms of the global financial architecture.

[00:01:23]Moving on, the federal government represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPL and International Oil Companies in Nigeria increased crude oil supply to domestic refineries led by the Dangote refinery by over 103% between January and April 2026. This day has learned. An analysis of the data released by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDP, yesterday showed that crude supplied locally to domestic refineries rose from 8.83 million barrels in January to 17.96 million barrels in April, reflecting a rise of 103.4%.

[00:02:04]In contrast, imported crude and feed stock supply to the refineries dropped from 9.43 43 million barrels in March to just 0.41 million barrels in April, representing a decline of approximately 95.6% within the period. The data underscored a major shift in Nigeria's downstream petroleum sector as the Dangote refinery increasingly relies on locally supplied crude oil for the production of refined petroleum products, especially petrol.

[00:02:34]In other news, OA state governor Shim Makin may formally declare his presidential ambition during a rally build for the ancient Mro Hall in Ibadon, southeast local government area of the state on Thursday. The event tagged Unity Mega Rally Ibadon 2026 is expected to serve as the official launch of Machindee's anticipated 2027 presidential bid alongside the unveiling of his of a political alliance between the people's democratic party and the allied people's movement in the state.

[00:03:05]Aside from declaring his presidential bid, Mckendai is also expected to unveil aspirants seeking state and national elective positions on the platform of the APM. The declaration rally is expected to be preceded by the signing of an agreement between leaders of the APM and the Tamino Turki faction of the PDP on the terms of the alliance.

[00:03:28]The federal government economic management came under fresh scrutiny yesterday after the African Democratic Congress ADC accused President Bolatinubu and APC governors of allegedly diverting over 800 billion naira from federation account allocation committee FAC funds for 2027 politics.

[00:03:47]The opposition party's allegation coming amid reports of renewed talks to the World Bank over a fresh $1.25 $25 billion loan facility has intensified concerns over public finance management, fiscal transparency and the growing hardship facing Nigerians under the government's economic reforms. While the ADC accused the willing r willing party of converting public resources into a political war chest ahead of the next general election, the minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, Taiwilli insisted that the country must urgently build a sustainable fiscal system capable or capable of funding infrastructure, health care, education and social protection without excessive dependence on debt.

[00:04:31]The Nigeria Union of Teachers NUT has expressed concerns over the federal government's waiver of the unified tertiary matriculation examination UTME requirement for admission into colleges of education. NUT president Audu Amber who was speaking at a workshop in Abuja says the union was not duly consulted before the announcement of the policy and that if not properly implemented the policy could weaken the quality of teacher training and undermine professionalism in the teaching profession.

[00:05:01]The federal minister of education has been doing well by trying to uh carry us alone in some of these uh policies at times. But uh this one that was uh announced just yesterday I think we a little bit taken a back and we a little bit got worried because we felt that uh uh I don't want to use a very harsh word but we felt uh the the system that produces teachers is not well considered or the institution that produces teachers who we teach for our tomorrow's children or even for the present generation is not well looked at because uh when you now say you've given waiver to student going to college of education not necessarily that they must uh go through jam to kind of uh secure admission it gives the man working on the street a different thinking of uh the seriousness that is attached to producing credible teachers. You you will bear with me that uh uh for some of us whom went to teachers training colleges from day memorial those schools are not visible now. I am a grade two teacher and I did my NC did my first degree and second degree all in education. I'm a rooted teacher that can teach at any level.

[00:06:52]>> All right, interesting stories this morning. Uh Dr. Bati Rufi, before I come to you, just a few uh takes on some of the issues this morning. Let me start off with the ADC and the opposition party calling for a deeper probe into the reports that 800 billion naira of Nigeria's Commonwealth is being diverted to as a political war chest to fund certain political parties campaigns in the next elections. Now, whenever an election cycle comes up, we often talk about war chests. We look at some of the states that would have or governors of certain states that would have political influence based on the revenue uh that's gotten from FAC and how they able to in some instances with the governors uh since the governor is the chief executive of the state be able to fund his political parties and we say these things sometimes almost as if it's normal as if it is expected as if that's what should happen but there's a simple word for it and that is corruption there's another word for it is mismanagement and diver version of the people's funds. There's another word for it. It is called fraudulent at the expense of the Nigerian people. And that is why when a report like this comes out, it is not enough for the ruling party who've been accused of this to keep quiet and wash us gloss over it or not attend to it. These are very serious allegations and like I mentioned earlier on earlier this week the punch did a report on how uh they have seen a significant reduction in capital expenditure by different states especially the penultimate year to an election this time 2026 to 2027. We often talk about the high cost of living. We talk about industrialization which the president touched on at the Africa forward summit. We talk about uh creation of jobs which were going for the 1.25 25 billion loan from the World Bank to fund. But we also don't talk about fiscal responsibility, fiscal discipline, fiscal accountability. And this is what that report has exposed.

[00:08:50]And the onus is on the government to actually break down f allocation and especially the subnationals as well, how they have spent their money. And this is why we often say that when we look at the federal, we look at the center, a lot of attention because of the sty, you know, the style of the federal federalism that's practiced here in Nigeria. But a lot more attention ought to be put to to the um to the subnationals. I recall that um uh you know caps used to have the monthly exercise where they would score governments and governors and on performance and use certain indices and maybe we should pay closer attention to that because a lot of money is bleeding out of those areas at the expense of the people. We look at infrastructure, health care. We look at we look at education. We look at roads, primary health centers. We look at education, basic education in these states. We look at road development networks in this state. We look at support for small business in businesses in this state to the extent that the governor can do. We look at the security vote which is shrouded in opacity and we have continued to ask that where do where does the money go to? Why are the people not feeling the impact? And so it's not enough to just look at the the president. And that's why there's always an announcement that this is how much was distributed to states in terms of fact allocation. But if governors cannot account for it, especially close to an election cycle, then we have a problem on our hands. In fact, they've used the words um ABC in this instance, Baji Abdullahi had come out to say it was criminal. It is criminal to the Nigerian people. And so what we expect from the government is a breakdown especially the state governors a breakdown of how the fact the fact given to them month by month was spent. We need closer accountability. We need more transparency. We need better accountability so that we can actually see how monies that have been realized from fact is translated to real progress for the people on ground. This issue must not be swept under the carpet. It was revealed by the will and we must get accountability from the governors, the government to see how this money was spent. We cannot continue to mortgage Nigeria's future based on political you know political ambitions and this is an area to look into. Now of course you know that this issue came to light based on the progressive governor's forums um you know impass and how they there was a vote of no confidence in the governor in in the chair of the pro progressive governor's forum governor hopea and now this has come to light. I think it presents an opportunity for us as a people to really see where the Commonwealth of the people has is going to and better accountability that should come up a lot during campaign season.

[00:11:24]Now, let me go on to your state and um the reports. It's in the Punch newspaper, it's in the Vanguard newspaper as well as other newspapers that tomorrow might very well be Dday for Governor Jim Machinde to declare his intentions to run um as president in the next elections. Of course, there had already been talks in many quarters uh based on his emergence as you know in an influence in the PDP with the G with the Wik camp and now with the um Taki faction. There are a number of questions that I would like to ask this morning if he does it is um he has the right he is of age 40 years and above he he has he has the qualifications in terms of having a minimum of a school set and all the recommendations or requirements by the constitution. But number one is does he have enough national spread in his own person and based on the work he's done as governor and a chieftain of the PDP? Yes, he's been able to extend the tentacles of his influence. However, would it be enough if he were to run for president? I doubt that. Number two is that this would also perhaps be influenced by whom he picks as his running mate. I want to assume that since they want the PDP faction of the Turkey, the Turkled faction of the PDP have decided to perhaps go with a southern candidate, they might consider a northern candidate as deputy. So this would also would he be able to make inroad particularly in the northern area. In the south, we already know that the votes will be divided. Now if he enters the race, we have the incumbent president Bame Tunu. We have Mr. Pitoi who might who is um posed to get the NDC ticket. We now have Mr. Sha Makindi as well. Don't forget we have a michi who has also gotten the ticket of the of the ADC. Where would the south vote? Would it further divide the votes and by so doing favor the interest of Abubaka as the only leading at at the moment um northern candidate. Then the PDP faction still have legal battles to deal with.

[00:13:19]He still has to contend with that he has. Um so those are some of the issues I would look at. But in terms of coming into the ring, it would excite the race.

[00:13:26]It would be great to see how far he would go. I can imagine that the wiki faction would have something to say about this, especially with the alliance that is set to be entered with the APM to strengthen and their base. Finally, I'll touch very quickly on um the president's um okay, very I I hear we're out of time, but um very quickly on the president's outing in Nairobi, Kenya for the Africa Forward Summit. He spoke very well about the structure changing the financial infrastructure architecture for funding and the metrics in which um loans are being given to African nations and how it's impacted in the lack of industrialization or sectors in the economy. I think he spoke very strongly but African nations themselves must also take responsibility for lack of governors in certain areas that hasn't also enabled them to grow as much as they would. But let me give the floor right now to Rui please your take this powerful analysis. I I should say real quickly just continuing from where President Tinu spoke. Yes, he said all the right things. He talked about the fact that there have been reforms in the Nigerian economy so much more that they've been able to increase the federal of the foreign reserve. But when people keep making the argument about the foreign reserve, I just say the foreign reserve might not really be a bare environment. It's just, you know, to be able to ensure that we can clear out some importations and we have some foreign buffers to be able to fight when our economy goes down. Like now for instance the for reserves is going down because of the war as we speak.

[00:14:48]>> So uh it's gone down from over 50 billion to about 48 billion. And that's why the other day I think somebody was attributed to saying the foreign reserve is increasing. I said I'm not sure they have the facts. He talked about other things. He talked about borrowing metrices the opening of the economy. But the question is how viable is the economy?

[00:15:07]You see for investors to come they check many metrices. Number one, what's the disposable income threshold in the country?

[00:15:15]You have creamed off the disposable income threshold after you remove subsidy without attendant effect of nurturing the economy.

[00:15:25]All the promises President made as regards subsidy removal have all failed because you claim number one that you are giving the money to the states. We are not seeing the impact of the money.

[00:15:37]Is it not part of the money that the wheel is now reporting that 800 billion out of fak has been set aside for elections? close to a trillion naira >> close to a trillion naira until today the government cannot even come out and give us a forensic report and say okay this is how our audit monitor goes just like till today they think we have forgotten has not subjected himself to an independent forensic audit not an INC written report of a forensic audit that a lot of people quickly watered down Nigerians have not forgotten if Amukon does not submit itself to the independent foric reporters as he has that Twitter handle and he thinks Nigerians have forgotten. These are the things that going to taint the believability of the elections when it happens.

[00:16:24]It's a fact. It's the truth and the truth doesn't hide.

[00:16:29]So they think because the matter has gone out of the news cycle will not talk about it again.

[00:16:35]They should keep deceiving themselves.

[00:16:37]When you look at the proposition, we're going to do infrastructure. We're going to reinvest the money. We didn't see the investment at least as they disagreed with Jonathan and president in the book called Jonathan all sorts of name and called subsidy Jonathan's tax sub Jonathan's tax.

[00:16:57]Jonathan had something called SH P subsidy reinvestment program >> where you saw where the reinvestment from what he said he was going to pull out >> you getucation.

[00:17:08]>> Education. Yeah.

[00:17:10]So you saw how he spent the money but here we cannot see it. We cannot account for it.

[00:17:18]We are also talking about investor climate.

[00:17:23]You can now see why I was hired yesterday. President to look for investment. Mr. Adam, Senator Adams say we should nationalize companies.

[00:17:33]By the way, the fact is out Ramaposa does not own shares in MTN.

[00:17:38]So they talk about oh when I said it yesterday because Raosa owned shares in MTN everybody was shaking it's not true divested his shares there was an investment arm called sea sapa which owned 20% stake there he has since divested out of that investment arm that own shares in MTN as of today empirically fact check me the man does not own shares in MTN that's the danger of populism populist talk because it's not based on facts. I giving you facts.

[00:18:12]We're talking about national investor climate.

[00:18:16]How do people, you know, ramp up cash and easy eress of their money in that one? I will give it to President Inobu.

[00:18:24]Yes, we've had a better liquid market.

[00:18:28]People can take their money out. But what's the viability of their buck when they invest it in Nigeria?

[00:18:35]How much does it make? What's the disposable income like? Yes, there's a big population size, but what's the power of capital spend? So, if I'm producing a product that is $5 and I need people to consume it constantly, how many people can afford that money? I think those are the pertinent question and I think Mr. Ty said it again yesterday. Let's look at the loan threshold. I just hope what has said will not put him in trouble because he said the truth that it's not sustainable with this kind of loan. We are taking another 1.7 something billion from the world bank. We are taking loan here and there. You can't sustainably run our economy this way. You know what will happen? You will have an increase in your downline of your servicing of your loan. Today we spend about 16 trillion to service loan.

[00:19:25]And when that money keeps increasing, this is money that you ought to use for development.

[00:19:31]So let's be careful. As regards the ADC, I think they've called for a very jerine investigation. We need to investigate.

[00:19:39]There are many things people need to investigate. They need to be able to even ask for a forensic audit trail of how monies were spent. And the wheel newspaper should also be able to help with providing more to the investigator.

[00:19:53]Even part of the investigation that we also calling on is that of the NNPC as yesterday now I think um the group led by delay alliance on they've written a petition to the IGP as regards the two companies and how did the NBC get those two companies that they signing an MOU with we need to also be able to see the MOU and see a level of accountability as regards the summit in Kenya it's just talk shop Europe will not invest 27 billion and just ensure that all the money goes to you is how the money will also come back to you and perpetrate colonialism. You see a lot of media didn't report the protest where people came to protest against colonialism of France and they were shot and and they were arrested in Kenya yesterday.

[00:20:37]The 27 billion years is great in investment. But the question is how does the capital flow? Does it stay back on the continent? It doesn't. So in announcement of investments does not mean it is a trickle down economics. A lot of people get those things two two things wrong and they get excited. What is the brass tax of the announcement of the investment? Those are the things people should look at. As regards Shimaki, I probably think he will try to do something with Balam Muhammad. But how viable is that going to be? Only time will tell. So I yield the floor.

[00:21:10]>> All right, Dr. B.

[00:21:12]>> Okay, let me start with J now. Uh and up front I'll say I'm a member of the uh advisory board of uh J at the time I was very active as chairman of one of those committees. Now J is not it's a rating agency you know after the pattern of what they do for university admissions in the United Kingdom called UKAS. So what JAM does under uh uh professor Lee is to help with the placements and maintain the standards but with a particular issue of uh national colleges of education. The issue is about demand and supply. these NCES are there. But what has been discovered is that most of the persons who apply for the UTME everybody wants to go to university.

[00:22:04]So you you have very low you know uh demand uh for colleges of education and then of course at the end of the day uh they will have to make a choice if they don't meet up in terms of uh uh the space that is available. So the uh jam having faced this over the years now says okay you don't have to do uh UTM if you want to go to a college of education but you must have the prerequisite requirement five credits right of entering a higher uh uh college in terms of your educational advancement but this does not mean that jam will still not be there. JAM will be still be there. JAM will help to check that your qualifications are in order before you go to NC. But the concern that has been expressed by NUT is that oh we don't want uh NC uh colleges of educations to be you know a dumping ground for students who are not of a very high grade. The only takeaway that you can say there is that yes we need teachers who are among the best qualified most qualified and they should not be you know people who do not perform very well but if nobody wants to read education if nobody wants to go to a college of education and everybody wants to go to university or to the poly techchnics that in itself is a comment not on the uh examination body uh not on the rating agency but on the structure that we have in our society where a degree is uh you know the almighty that everybody wants to get even if uh 80% of the people who get degrees these days are completely ignorant taught also for the most part uh by teachers whose credentials may also be uh in question but I agree with the argument that education is a sector where we should have the best and the brightest teaching and producing the best and the brightest for society and not a dumping ground for average people.

[00:24:16]That I think is the original argument of NUT. But the question you should now raise is that we have a problem in terms of ratio in terms of emphasis in terms of how Nigeria prepares people for the labor market.

[00:24:31]what are the kind of talented persons of the kind of persons that we want to put in the labor market. But I think that education is very important. Once upon a time in this country, the people who went into education, they were the brightest people who in addition to being very bright also stood in local parents.

[00:24:53]So how did we get here? And it is part of the collapse of values of you know expectations because in traditional communities the teacher was a king.

[00:25:05]If you had you know ordinary grade two teacher certificate or whatever you were considered a very serious-minded person in society because you are the person who is going to help mood uh society. So I think that at a policy level uh that's a major challenge but it's not a jam that we say okay this is a ratio I think that will be a major issue at the federal government level uh to see where the emphasis will be in terms of developmental purposes particularly now that the world has become far more competitive uh than hitherto now as for dangote uh that the federal government is saying and the IOC's are say we are giving them over 103% in terms of crude supply since the last 4 months that may be true well even if it is true our response is that it is not enough now if you are giving dangote refineries let's say 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day how would 50,000 barrels of uh crude oil per day meet the expectation of 650,000 of you finished product per day. So you know that was still not enough. And then when they say the IOC's have also increased their supply, it's not as if the IOC's can supply to Dangote refinery directly.

[00:26:32]They will Dangote refinery will still have to go through traders and so you know if government is really committed to this idea of reducing the cost of uh of uh petroleum products you know and particularly fuel uh you know at the pump stations. The thing to do is to keep to that uh obligation that commitment about crude for naira and also about volume.

[00:27:00]Now that Dangote refinery is even talking of investment in Tanzania, in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa and some of those African countries are showing interest. The Dangote refinery is our own and it deserves the support that it requires. So all this talk about we have increased by 103% in four months is just hype. It's just pure propaganda and I've deployed you know this result to propaganda on a consistent basis on this table. So if they want to support Dangot refinery they know what to do uh but they should keep away from hype and propaganda. As for uh Kenya, the basic thing to note about Kenya, yes, President uh uh uh Chinobu said all the right things. president when he says look we have to look at the international financial system in such a way that we support productivity in Africa and that Africa is not just a provider of raw materials but that Africa becomes effectively within the global system a center of productivity yeah he's is very right says we need partnership we don't need aid oh president R is right but the major problem that I in terms of this conversation is the incoherence of leadership in Africa. These African leaders, they are very good at saying the right things. But look, they're not providing the kind of leadership that would result in the kind of outcomes that they themselves are demanding.

[00:28:43]There may be a few that you can pick out and all of that, but for the most part, leadership is the biggest problem that we face in Africa. Look at the AFCT FA FTA. They can't even make progress to it. So these African leaders, they just read scripts. However, the other thing to note here is that Macron, the French president, >> the that summit was titled Africa Forward. It used to be called France Africa Summit. Then they changed it.

[00:29:15]They tweaked it. They change you to Africa France summit trying to keep Africa first and then of course now it is Africa forward and we should just see what the French are trying to do. They are redefining their relationship with Africa with seven of the franophhone countries having abandoned France and because of what they consider the colonial nature of the relationship with Africa. Now I the the French they are now putting Africa at the center of it.

[00:29:47]They are no longer talking about uh uh you know defense part. They are talking about partnership. They are no longer talking about resource dependence on Africa extraction. They are talking about trade and all of that. And I think that that is the biggest part of it. And Macron use the word strategic autonomy.

[00:30:07]What remains to be seen is how strategic that autonomy uh that relationship that partnership uh will turn out to be. But on the whole it's a very successful conference particularly even at the level of soft diplomacy with President Mron having a jogging in the morning with the Olympic champion the leud kipushi and also you know relating with school children who were asking what's your name and he said my name is >> the innocence of children. Thank you so much.