Leemon Ikpea: Tinubu Delivering on His Promises

Bayo Akinloye

With a panoramic view of where Nigeria was grounded, and President Bola Tinubu took over the reins of government, the former governor of Lagos is delivering on his promises. That is the conclusion reached by Chief Leemon Ikpea, the founder and Chairman of the Lee Engineering Group and Allied Companies Limited. Known for his forthrightness and shrewdness, Ikpea has chosen to stand with the president’s audacious policies and actions, even though he admitted “no pain, no gain” as the country and its citizens reel under the cumulative burdens of decades of economic conundrum that has fully unravelled under Tinubu. Ikpea continues to see audacious hope and prosperity amid the shadows cast by the strains of current economic cliffhangers.

“Yes, President Tinubu rode to power on the slogan of ‘Renewed Hope’. To hope is a beautiful thing. It is energising. It is even instructive when there’s a basis to hope,” Ikpea told THISDAY.

“Besides, it’s not for nothing THISDAY Newspaper named President Tinubu ‘Man of the Year,” the oil mogul added. Listen to what the newspaper said, ‘On a balance of scales and given all considerations, it is hard to find anyone who could fairly challenge President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the THISDAY Man of the Year commemoration. Determined and unfazed in the face of mounting challenges and attendant hardships, the president marches on with his audacious reforms to change Nigeria.”

“We must doff our hats for him,” Ikpea said. The Lee Engineering boss noted that the president has stubbornly stuck to his tough decisions to salvage the country from economic doldrums.

The billionaire oil magnate sees a courageous leader in Tinubu, unafraid to take the bull by the horns. To the founder and Chairman of the Lee Engineering Group and Allied Companies Limited, the president is deeply concerned about Nigeria’s future generations and is determined to rectify as many past mistakes as possible, such as removing the petrol subsidy.

“The process is gradual. It’s understood that many of the country’s challenges accumulated over decades. Successive leaders shied away from taking bold decisions until things came to a head. So, who bells the cat?” Ikpea reasoned. Courage is a true sign of leadership. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Did we see that in the president?”

The latest Chatham House review reflected Ikpea’s sentiment. The UK international affairs policy think tank said the Nigerian economy is witnessing its most competitive season in 25 years on the back of the Tinubu administration’s reforms, including the devaluation of the naira from N460/$1 to about N1,500/$1.

In an article titled, ‘Nigeria’s Economy Needs the Naira to Stay Competitive’, Chatham House said that to secure long-term growth, the government must resist the temptation to fight inflation by letting the naira strengthen against the dollar. Admitting that two years after electing Tinubu as president, Nigerian voters had good reasons to feel unhappy with their choice, Chatham House said during the time, the value of the naira had collapsed, petrol prices had quadrupled, and food prices were more than 80 per cent higher, while poverty had risen.

In the midst of all these, the organisation stated that Tinubu’s economic reforms gave Nigeria the best hope for sustainable growth for decades, stating that the path the reform process took next would be crucial for the country’s future.

At the centre of the reforms is Tinubu’s decision to allow a substantial devaluation of the naira, which has fallen from N460 to a dollar around the 2023 election to just below N1,500. “Nigeria’s currency adjustment is one of the largest anywhere for years: only the Ethiopian birr has seen a bigger move recently,” the Chatham House report said. “With the naira’s fall, Nigeria is arguably now more competitive than at any time in the past 25 years.”

“I understand. I feel the pain, too. But I look beyond the immediate pain,” said Ikpea. “These are teething problems. They are bumps in the road. With Tinubu, we can’t miss our destination. He has a legacy to build on and a name to protect. More important, he wants the best for his compatriots.”

When the federal government announced the unification of the foreign exchange market, it was greeted with mixed feelings. For Ikpea, floating the naira is in the best interest of Nigeria’s monetary stability. Even though the exchange rate of the naira to the dollar has not returned to its pre-Tinubu reign, for the first time, the parallel market and the official market rates are almost the same, signalling the stability of the national currency.

The latest think tank report observed that the depreciation of the naira had two hugely positive consequences, namely, improvement in Nigeria’s balance of payments, now in surplus, and re-entering capital into the country. As a result, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), according to the report, had added to its foreign exchange reserves, which now exceeded $40 billion, and had an adequate stock of reserves, the sine qua non for financial stability in developing countries. It added that CBN’s progress should be congratulated, with gross reserves at a prudent level currently, more or less equal to Nigeria’s stock of external debt, but which could also be higher.

Ikpea has always believed there is light at the end of the tunnel. Chatham confirmed his belief in Tinubu.

“The other positive effect is that the naira’s devaluation has given substantial support to the Nigerian budget. The World Bank argues that a misaligned exchange rate hit Nigeria’s budget harder in recent years than the cost of the government’s fuel subsidies,” said the think tank.

The Tinubu administration’s economic reforms have contributed to strengthening the naira, said Ikpea, pointing to the bold decision to remove subsidies and float the currency, which experts have recognised as a crucial step towards achieving economic stability.

Some months short of the Tinubu presidency’s second anniversary, Ikpea stressed that the Nigerian president has made significant strides in delivering on its promises to the Nigerians despite the daunting challenges inherited from previous administrations. The businessman told THISDAY that Tinubu’s unwavering commitment to reform and growth keeps yielding tangible results.

“President Tinubu is energising the energy sector,” said Ikpea. He explained that the president’s key area of focus has been the oil and gas sector. The recent commencement of production at the Port Harcourt refinery marks a major milestone in the government’s efforts to revitalise the industry. This development is expected to boost oil production, reduce reliance on imports, and create jobs for thousands of Nigerians. According to a Chatham House report, Tinubu’s energy sector reforms can potentially increase Nigeria’s oil production by up to 20 per cent in the next two years. This would boost government revenues and provide a much-needed stimulus to the economy.

Ikpea also highlighted the reduction in oil theft. The oil magnate said that the Tinubu administration has been successful in tackling the hydra-headed monsters: oil thieves, citing the implementation of new security measures and technologies resulting in a notable reduction in stolen oil and an increased revenue for the nation. That is not all, said Ikpea.

The oil and gas mogul noted that after over four years of consistently failing to achieve the quota allocated to it by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Nigeria finally met the target in its December 2024 oil production circle. According to the survey, Nigeria’s production increased by 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.51 million a day, reaching a four-year high. The current OPEC crude oil volume expected from Nigeria is 1.5 million bpd. After years of failing to meet its circa 1.8 million bpd, OPEC had reduced Nigeria’s quota in 2023 to 1.5 million bpd, with the country still unable to hit the target since then. In November last year, Nigeria came short of achieving the quota, with data from NUPRC showing that the country produced 1.485 million bpd, about 99 per cent of the expected OPEC output. It was, on average, Nigeria’s highest volume of crude oil, excluding condensates drilled last year.

In January 2024, which hitherto had the highest crude oil production, Nigeria’s oil output was 1.42 million bpd. In February of the same year, Nigeria recorded 1.32 million bpd, 1.23 million bpd in March, 1.28 million bpd in April, 1.25 million bpd in May, and 1.27 million bpd in June. In July, the country’s OPEC oil production was 1.3 million bpd; in August, it was 1.35 million bpd; 1.32 million bpd in September; 1.33 million bpd in October, and then 1.485 million bpd in November, excluding condensate. Later, in November 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) and its partners revved up crude oil and gas production to 1.8 million barrels per day (mbpd) and 7.4 billion standard cubic feet (bscf) per day.

Ikpea highlighted that in 2024, Nigeria became the most attractive destination for oil and gas investments in Africa, securing over $5 billion in Final Investment Decisions (FIDs), and the 2024 Electricity Act provides a framework for state governments to establish regulated electricity markets, following a constitutional amendment. He also credited the president with the actualisation of the local government autonomy as a landmark Supreme Court of Nigeria ruling in July 2024 empowered local governments with unprecedented financial autonomy, with an Inter-Ministerial Committee established to ensure compliance.

The businessman was also prompt to mention targeted interventions of the Tinubu presidency, such as the student loan fund, opening up opportunities as over 169,000 students have benefited from NELFUND, receiving N32.8 billion for school fees and upkeep. Additionally, Ikpea stated that though considered a ‘Lagos boy’, Tinubu is a nationalist, citing the president’s regional development efforts with the establishment of commissions for the North-Central, South-East, and North-West regions.

Tinubu, Ikpea said, is also investing in healthcare initiatives (like the recently approved $1.07 billion from the World Bank for health programs, including targeted subsidies for cancer patients); passport reforms (with the clearing of a backlog of over 200,000 international passports was cleared within three weeks in 2024); Compressed Natural Gas, with an investment of over $450 million has been made to develop Nigeria’s CNG value chain; and infrastructure development. For example, Ikpea noted that under Tinubu, Nigeria has become a hub of construction activity following the approval of N1.334 trillion for the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, N470.9 billion for access roads to the Second Niger Bridge, and N195 billion for the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway reconstruction. One of Nigeria’s nemesis is insecurity as rampaging bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and secessionists threaten to turn the country into a dystopian state. But Ikpea hails Tinubu’s commitment to defence and security. Ikpea cited a report that in 2024, security forces neutralised over 8,000 terrorists and bandits, rescued 8,000 kidnap victims, and established a Multi-Agency Anti-Kidnap Fusion Cell in collaboration with the UK’s National Crime Agency.