IF you have a letter that requires Minister of Finance’s signature, direct it to Dr Doris Nkiruka Uzoka-Anite, who is now the de facto Minister of Finance in the Bola Tinubu’s government.
This is because President Tinubu, this week, stripped revenue-generation and cash management functions from Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, and handed them over to Dr Uzoka-Anite.
In a memo from the presidency dated December 10, 2025, President Tinubu asked the Imo State-born medical doctor and banker to urgently identify ways of boosting federal revenues, while supervising debts and payments.
Minister of Budget and National Plannning, Mr Abubakar Bagudu and Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite
She has since taken charge of revenue-related affairs. On December 15, she chaired the December meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). The following day, Dr Uzoka-Anite had a meeting with state commissioners of finance to discuss matters of revenue sharing and fiscal-related issues.
“Very productive meeting with my friends, the State Commissioners of Finance! Appreciate the commitment they show to national building at the state level. Looking forward to more,” Uzoka-Anite wrote on her X handle after the meeting.
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On December 17, she attended a meeting on the 2026-2028 Medium Term Expenditure Framework & Fiscal (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP). On December 19, she chaired the Steering Committee Meeting for the Accelerating Results, Mobilising Reforms (PforR) programme.
“It was a productive session joined by leadership from the Nigeria Customs Service, FIRS, and the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee,” she posted on X after the meeting. On December 23, she had a meeting with Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, in her office.
Responsibilities
Ms Uzoka-Anite has been charged with the responsibility of improving Nigeria’s fiscal position at a time when revenue is dwindling. The major reason for Mr Edun lost out, Economy Post gathered, is that he hasn’t been able to improve Nigeria’s revenue profile this year. Her deputy must now perform or she is booted out, insiders say.
This year alone, the Nigerian government projected N40.8 trillion revenue but has only earned N10.7 trillion. Part of the Minister of State’s new job is to improve the revenue and block leakages.
She has also been given an express authority to ensure the nation increases its earnings from the Customs, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and other government agencies.
Economy Post learnt that her meetings with the agencies were targeted at ensuring that she was in the same page as all revenue-generating agencies to ensure the full realisation of her biggest mandate.
Part of Uzoka-Anite’s role is to curb waste while checking corruption across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Nigerian government.
The former Zenith Bank treasurer has also been mandated to ensure that risks exposing Nigeria to high debt or its servicing are gradually eliminated.
According to the 2026–2028 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) seen by Economy Post, the Nigerian government projects total revenue of N34.33 trillion in 2026, out of which N15.91 trillion, which is about 46.34 percent, will go toward debt servicing.
This implies that almost half of the nation’s income in 2026 will be devoted to repaying loans and their interests, leaving little fiscal space for real development and critical investments such as purchase of security equipment, infrastructure development, among other vital areas.
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Debt servicing or loan repayment took 69 percent of Nigerian government’s revenue of N19.354 trillion in 2024, according to the 2024 Budget Implementation Report (BIR) released by the Budget Office of the Federation in September 2025. In 2023, debt servicing to revenue stood at 73.5 percent, said the Debt Management Office (DMO).
Though the 2026 debt-to-revenue figures may seem low, it is relatively high when compared with some of Nigeria’s African peers. Debt servicing in South Africa for 2023/2024 stood at 15 percent as against 38 percent in Egypt, 35.24 percent in Benin, and 26.12 percent in Senegal, according to the debt database of the Development Finance Organization and country-specific revenue institutions.
