The Tinubu government has produced more rapid policy reversals in three years than any administration since IBB. Three are emblematic.
## 0.5% Cybersecurity Levy (May 2024)
On 6 May 2024 the CBN issued a directive that all electronic bank transfers would attract a 0.5% cybersecurity levy under the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc.) (Amendment) Act 2024. Banks were ordered to begin deductions within two weeks.
The public reaction — coming a year into a cost-of-living crisis — was immediate. The NLC threatened a general strike. The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and the Bank Customers Association filed a court action. On 17 May 2024 — 11 days after the directive — President Tinubu ordered the suspension of the levy pending a "comprehensive review". As of 2026 it has not been reinstated.
## Expatriate Employment Levy (February 2024)
The Expatriate Employment Levy, announced on 27 February 2024, required Nigerian employers of foreign workers to pay $15,000 per director-level expat and $10,000 per other expat, annually. Designed to discourage the employment of foreigners in roles Nigerians could fill, it was modelled loosely on the Singaporean foreign-worker levy. The reaction from foreign chambers of commerce (US, UK, France, China), foreign direct investors and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group was uniform: the levy would simply price Nigeria out of FDI consideration. Tinubu suspended the levy on 8 March 2024 — 10 days after its announcement.
## Customs FX-for-Duty Reversion (June 2024)
In February 2024 the Nigeria Customs Service moved the FX rate used to calculate import duty from the (then) administered rate of about ₦950/$ to the prevailing market rate of ₦1,650/$. Importers' duty bills rose by roughly 70% overnight. After two months of importer protests and a sharp jump in the cost of imported food, Customs reverted to a frozen rate for duty calculation — effectively reinstating the pre-reform regime for that one purpose. The reversion was never formally announced but became clear from Customs daily FX-for-duty notices.
## What Tinubu's reversals reveal
Three patterns:
- Speed of capitulation has accelerated. Buhari took 16 months to reverse the border closure. Tinubu reverses in 10 days when organised business protests.
- The reversal is selective. The most painful reforms — petrol subsidy removal, FX unification, electricity tariff hikes — have not been reversed. Only the policies that hurt politically connected business have been.
- The F.O.O.D logic survives the reversals. Each suspended levy left the protected operators (banks, importers, expat-employing firms) untouched; each surviving reform shifted cost to the unprotected (subsidy removal hit transport; FX unification hit imported food). See The King of F.O.O.D.
The Reversal File closes on the recurring lesson of Nigerian policy: the country's U-turn cycle is not failure of will but a structural feature. Policy is announced to extract rent or signal toughness; reversal is the mechanism by which the constituency that pays the cost negotiates relief. The losers are usually the same people. See Patterns of Violence.