Sack Of Wale Edun, Better Late Than Never

Mixed reactions have been trailing the recent sack by President Bola Tinubu of Wale Edun as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy days after the former minister attended the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, where Nigeria’s debt burden, reform progress and financing pressures were deliberated upon.

On April 21, 2026 the Secretary to the Federal Government George Akume, announced a reshuffle of the Tinubu cabinet, which dropped Edun, a man who many thought was inseparable from the president, given their long years of close collaboration.

For instance, in all the eight years of Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos State (1999-2007), Edun had served as Commissioner of Finance, before being appointed to the federal cabinet in 2023, as the custodian of the nation’s purse – an office which he just lost. He had been replaced by Taiwo Oyedele, another of Tinubu’s acolytes, who was earlier appointed as the Minister of State in the same Ministry of Finance with added schedule of coordinating the Nigerian economy.

Also dropped in the cabinet reshuffle was Ahmed Dangiwa Minister of Housing and Urban Development who has been replaced by Dr. Mustaqha Rabe Darma.

With Edun’s sack, speculations have been trending over why, along with the implications. Some accounts cite the mystery surrounding the non-release of a yet untraced, whopping sum of N1.15 trillion earmarked as capital votes in the 2025 budget and which is yet to be accounted for, as well as the attendant dislocations in the country’s fiscal terrain.

This came to light from several disclosures including that by Alex Mascot Ikwechegh, a member of the House of Representatives representing Aba North and South Federal Constituency, during a routine oversight exercise by the legislature.  Yet others cite a long simmering dissonance between Edun and his overbearing boss Tinubu, which reportedly came to light in late December 2025 in a shouting match between both men during a cabinet meeting.

While these and other narratives on their spilt may enjoy merit, a more fundamental reason for the tiff between them apparently derives from a latter-day mutual disappointment and recrimination which degenerated into a blame game, over their jointly orchestrated, but avoidable blunders in managing the economy. Meanwhile, apparently beyond their gaze, this was courtesy of their fundamentally flawed approach to reviving the economy, at the inception of the administration.

With a fundamental misreading of the nation’s economy from inception of the administration by both Tinubu and Edun, their enterprise hardly earned anything more than the present nationwide state of despair for most Nigerians, and the face-off between the duo. This factor more than any other justifies the exit of the man Edun who should have held up a vision of credible and sustainable remediation of the economy, and stood by it no matter the pressure from any quarters, including the president.

Evidence of the misreading of the economy by the Tinubu team which included Edun as a critical factor was ostensibly spawned by their fixation on securing a second term for the President from day one of the tenure, instead of addressing the economy with the attention and commitment it deserved. Economists recognize that every economy has five discernible sections.

These are namely the primary producers who extract valuables from nature, the second section being the processors of the produce of the first section, the third section being the service producers, the fourth section remains the generators of know-how, while the fifth section comprises the government. It ordinarily stands to reason that any meaningful effort to remediate the ailing Nigerian economy should have included its sectional evaluation and deployment of appropriate remedies accordingly. That such was not done by Edun and his boss is crystal clear, and inevitably led to all the economy-related problems facing Nigerians today.

Hence at the last count, the administration has been tottering and stumbling from one blunder to another as far as the economy is concerned, largely due to the questionable remediation measures deployed by Edun, and ostensibly under the direct oversight by Tinubu. Meanwhile, every lament and sign of dissent by Nigerians over the crushing hardship across the country, has been met with characteristic obduracy, repression and aloofness to the suffering of the masses by the President and his team with, Edun as the boiler room facilitator.

In specific terms, among the missteps by President Bola Tinubu was the sudden withdrawal of fuel subsidy at the inception of the administration without providing Nigerians any tangible fallback relief in the harrowing course of whatever reforms were intended by the measure. It is easily recalled that several Nigerians who protested over the strangulating hardship, suffered significant harassment with some even dying from Tinubu’s draconian, repressive responses to civil dissent. Also was the free fall of the Naira’s exchange rate in an import dependent Nigerian economy, and the consequent fall in productivity.

The foregoing situation was not helped by the failure of the administration to address itself to stimulants to the economy such as improving electricity supply, and giving the nation the grace of boosting domestic productivity, as well as ameliorating the shortfall in imports. In fact, in the face of the current state of acute nationwide electricity supply shortages, Nigerians are citing Tinubu’s presidential campaign challenge in respect of which he stated that if he fails to fix the country’s electricity challenge within the first two years of his administration, he should be denied a second term in office. It is interesting that the foregoing now runs in conflict with the present frenzy of securing a mandatory second term in office for the president, into which the country has been driven, as literally every aspect of public life in Nigeria is being corralled into ensuring a second term for him, come 2027.

With Oyedele now in the saddle as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Nigerian Economy, not a few Nigerians are waiting to see how much will change in the trajectory of the nation’s economy. However, an informed guess holds that not much will change with the current fixation of the entire machinery of governance on just one goal – securing a second term in office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for Bola Tinubu.

•Written By Monima Daminabo