The Presidency has accused prominent economist Professor Pat Utomi of hypocrisy for calling the current economic reforms of President Bola Tinubu a “Ponzi scheme.”

Reacting to Utomi’s statement on Wednesday, Sunday Dare, spokesperson to President Tinubu, published a pointed rebuttal citing the prior leadership roles the Professor of political economy played at Volkswagen Nigeria and BankPHB that ended in collapse.

“Professor Pat Utomi has once again chosen to dance naked in the public square, playing to the gallery with a familiar cocktail of grandstanding and gloom. This time, he has come to dismiss the reform programme of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as “ridiculous,” “poorly structured,” and, in a flourish of intellectual overreach, a “Ponzi scheme,” Dare said.

“At this point, the issue is no longer what Utomi is saying. The issue is why his interventions consistently collapse under the weight of their own exaggeration, under the slightest scrutiny or interrogation.

“Any reflective — indeed, discerning — mind would note that, after all these long years of sophistry and vacuous pontifications, all Utomi can possibly point to as his bonafides or bragging rights in the civic space today are the ruins of Volkswagen Automobile Ltd and BankPHB where his much touted “academic wizardry” was exposed as “Ponzi scheme.”

Dare said Utomi’s economy is of words alone, not results, adding that the professor’s public persona has long rested on the alarmist aura of a “political economist.”

“But strip away the titles, the panels, and the endless commentary, and a more uncomfortable question emerges: where is the evidence of all his posturings in the public space?,” the former Sports Minister asked.

He argued that Nigeria’s economic distortions did not emerge in a vacuum, they were sustained over decades by a rotating class of commentators and advisers who: “theorized dysfunction instead of dismantling it; intellectualized failure instead of correcting it and, crucially, found relevance within a broken system.”

Utomi, according to Dare, was not outside that ecosystem, while stressing that the professor was part of it, with his post defending Tinubu’s policies including fuel subsidy removal in May 2023.

He also defended the FX window unification as verifiable steps that eliminated multi-trillion-naira fiscal drains, boosted FAAC allocations to states, and ended arbitrage opportunities benefiting insiders.

“Contrast this with measurable shifts under the current reform cycle: Fuel subsidy removal (May 2023): eliminated a multi-trillion-naira fiscal drain, freeing up revenues for subnational allocations and deficit reduction,” Dare added.

“Exchange rate unification: collapsed multiple FX windows into a single market-reflective rate—an essential step flagged for years by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. “(The actual Ponzi scheme” that benefited a few with privileged access through arbitrage.)

“FAAC disbursements have risen materially post-subsidy removal, improving state-level fiscal liquidity.”

Tinubu’s spokesperson also framed Utomi’s critique as part of a broader pattern where long-time commentators who benefited from policy opacity now oppose structural changes aimed at price discovery, reduced leakages, and improved oil revenue remittances.

“There is a pattern here that is too glaring to ignore. For years, the rent-seeking architecture of Nigeria’s economy—subsidy leakages, FX arbitrage, policy opacity—created space for a certain kind of “expert”: visible, vocal, and perpetually adjacent to power, yet rarely accountable for outcomes,” Dare said.

“Now, that architecture is being disrupted. And suddenly, the volume of outrage has gone up. This is not a coincidence. It is a reaction.

“When a system that once rewarded commentary begins to prioritize structural correction, those who thrived in the old order often rebrand themselves as its fiercest critics. Not out of principle—but out of displacement.”

Meanwhile, according to Dare, early macro signals are adjusting: “Oil revenue remittances have improved post-subsidy removal and reforms in NNPCL transparency frameworks.

“External reserves stability has strengthened relative to pre-reform volatility cycles. Debt service-to-revenue pressure has begun easing marginally as fiscal leakages are curtailed.”

Dare stated that the “Ponzi Scheme” claim by Utomi is a collapse of serious thinking. “Let’s be blunt. Calling a national reform programme a “Ponzi scheme” is not provocative—it is intellectually hollow,” he said.

According to him, “A Ponzi scheme is built on deception and zero value creation. Nigeria’s reforms—however painful—are attempting to: eliminate fiscal leakages, restore price discovery in the FX market and rebuild macroeconomic credibility.

“If anything resembled a Ponzi structure, it was the previous regime of borrowing to sustain consumption, subsidizing inefficiency at scale and masking structural weakness with artificial stability.”