The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, has said that the removal of fuel subsidy by the President Bola Tinubu’s administration in 2023 saved Nigeria’s economy from crashing.

Mr Alake stated this during the 2026 Nigeria Revenue Service-Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (NRS-MSMD) joint sstakeholder sensitisation programme (North Central).

He said without taking such action, Nigeria would have faced dire consequences, including falling into severe economic crisis and possible collapse.

A statement of the meeting was made available to newsmen by Mrs Kania Maliki, Head, Press and Public Relations Department of the ministry on Thursday in Abuja.

The minister said that the ongoing reforms by the Tinubu’s administration were aimed at repositioning the economy.

He said, “Because by the time this government came into power, or even long before it came into power, this country was borrowing money to pay salaries.

“Not to capitalise the economy, but to pay salaries with current expenditure, not capital. When a society or a nation borrows to pay salaries, you know what that means, there can be no development.

“At some point when borrowing became too difficult and we are having difficulties, because our credit ratings crashed too. So, the borrowing agencies were very sceptical of looking at us. What did we start to do? We started to print currency locally, we printed over 20 trillion.”

The minister said the current reforms were efforts to prevent the economy from further deteriorating, emphasising the need to build structures to ensure a resilient and sustainable economy.

He traced Nigeria’s economic decline to pre-Tinubu’s administration due to a shift from local production in 1960s to early 1980s to heavy importation.

According to him, societal shift towards a consumptive mentality, led to heavy importation of goods that could be produced locally, which in turn led to the closure of factories and job losses in the country.

He said past leaders failed to address the situation which led to spending up to $600 million on importing items such as wigs and a reliance on borrowing to pay salaries.

“The previous leaderships lacked the courage to reset the Nigerian economy, mindset, values and orientation,” he said.

To change the trend, he said the Tinubu administration took bold and drastic steps to stop economic mismanagement, block leakages and reform the economy.

Also speaking, the permanent secretary of the ministry, Faruk Yabo, emphasised the need to reposition the solid minerals industry to boost Nigeria’s drive for economic diversification, job creation and sustainable national development.

According to him, there is also a critical need for compliance, transparency and collaboration with the NRS to optimise the sector revenues.

Mr Yabo said that aligning mining operations with the 2025 Tax Reform Act was crucial to eliminating revenue leakages and ensuring the country derived real value from its mineral wealth.

He urged operators, regulators and industry leaders to collaborate in understanding and effectively implementing the new royalty administration frameworks, in order to enhance government revenue and drive industry growth.

The event was themed ‘From Resource to Revenue: Aligning Solid Minerals Operations with the 2025 Tax Reform Act’.

In line with the new tax laws, the NRS has taken responsibility for collecting mineral royalties from mining sector operators across the country. While  the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development would continue its technical and regulatory oversight on the sector.

Both organisations were expected to hold a joint nationwide sensitisation programme for operators in the sector, particularly to guide royalty filing and payment as spelt out under the new tax laws.