The Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, has listed four major economic distortions inherited by the President Bola Tinubu-led administration.

Adedeji identified the distortions as an unsustainable fuel subsidy, an opaque foreign exchange market, an underperforming oil sector and a small tax base.

The NRS Chairman made this known during an appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, where he defended his earlier comments in a viral video against critics of the present administration and argued that Nigeria’s fiscal condition is improving.

Adedeji said the conditions inherited by the Tinubu administration had contributed to a trade deficit, negative FAAC inflows and ways and means that had grown to about N23 trillion.

He said the administration had to address four mutually reinforcing distortions that were affecting the country’s economy.

“Mr President inherited an economy that is baffled with four mutually reinforcing distortion. One is subsidy that is unsustainable. Second one is an opaque foreign exchange market that we have, that discouraged investment into the country,” he said.

“The third one is an underperforming oil sector, which should be our backbone. And last one is that we have tax base that is very small compared to the size of our economy,” he said.

“Those are the conditions that we met. And if you see that in real time, we have a trade deficit. You have negative FAAC inflow, meaning that instead of NNPC oil company bringing money to us, we are actually owing the NNPC because of subsidies that are not sustainable,” he said.

“You go to CBN, you have a backlog of several billion. You have ways and means of roughly 23 trillion,” he said.

Adedeji insisted that Nigeria’s fiscal condition, or balance sheet, is getting better and argued that this would translate into improved living conditions for Nigerians.

Adedeji said that if President Tinubu had not initiated the economic reforms, Nigeria’s fuel subsidy expenditure could have reached N53 trillion amid developments in Iran and the global economy.

He said the naira could have potentially weakened to around N3,500 to the dollar if the reforms had not been implemented.

Adedeji argued that the fuel subsidy was not a sustainable government expenditure because the government was borrowing money to purchase petrol at a higher price and sell it to consumers at a lower price.

“Subsidy is not an income. It is like you are using your borrowing money to buy a product and that product is 10 naira, and you are selling it at 3 naira,” he said.

He said creating a buffer before removing the subsidy would not have addressed the underlying fiscal problem because the government was already financing the subsidy through borrowed resources.

He said President Tinubu should be commended for not playing politics with the removal of the subsidy, describing the decision as patriotic.

Adedeji had in April 2026 suggested that Nigeria would have spent about N52 trillion on fuel subsidies, representing 76 per cent of the N68 trillion 2026 budget, if the policy had not been removed.

He said the removal of the subsidy had significantly improved Nigeria’s fiscal outlook.

According to him, the policy had helped reposition the country from severe fiscal strain to a more stable economic footing.

The NRS Chairman’s latest comments come as the administration continues to defend the economic reforms introduced since President Tinubu assumed office.