• Urges immediate implementation of Oronsaye Report
• Laments agencies’ deduction of N658b as revenue collection cost

The Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics (AERE), Dele Oye, has decried the rising cost of governance, warning that Nigeria is losing over N862 billion to the proliferation of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to over 900, which he said is worsening the business environment and undermining economic growth.

In a statement, Oye urged the federal government to urgently implement the Steve Oronsaye Presidential Committee’s recommendations on the Restructuring and Rationalisation of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions, and Agencies, describing them as the most practical roadmap for reducing the cost of governance and eliminating overlapping government agencies.

According to him, the committee, established in 2012, recommended reducing the number of statutory federal agencies through mergers, abolitions, and restructuring, with projected savings of approximately N862 billion between 2012 and 2015.

He lamented that despite the report and the federal government’s approval of aspects of its recommendations in 2023, the implementation has remained largely stalled, while the number of federal agencies has continued to grow to over 900.

Oye argued that the growing number of agencies has created overlapping mandates, duplicated regulatory responsibilities and increased compliance costs for businesses, discouraging investment and economic expansion.

Using the recent sealing of three milk factories in Awada, Onitsha, by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) as an example, Oye said the incident highlighted the inefficiencies of Nigeria’s fragmented regulatory system.

He noted that manufacturers of food products are required to deal with multiple regulators, including the FCCPC, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), each exercising similar regulatory powers over the same businesses.

According to him, the resulting duplication has created unnecessary bureaucracy that raises the cost of compliance and encourages many small businesses to remain in the informal sector rather than submit to multiple regulatory requirements.

“In Nigeria, a manufacturer producing dairy products does not face one regulator but a constellation. NAFDAC demands product registration and facility inspection. SON demands standards compliance and certification. The FCCPC demands consumer protection compliance,” Oye noted.

“Add the State Environmental Agency, Local Government trade licenses, and perhaps the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), and you have a recipe for paralysis.

“These manufacturers are caught between a rock and a hard place. They cannot move forward without satisfying all six agencies, yet each agency operates as if it alone holds the keys to public safety. It is not merely bureaucratic inefficiency; it is bureaucratic warfare.”

Illustrating the scenario, Oye said, “The ancient wisdom captured in the proverb, ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth,’ has never been more apt. When three different federal agencies have the statutory power to seal a single factory, we are no longer talking about regulation. We are talking about an administrative circus where the performer is the private sector and the audience is watching them collapse under the weight of compliance.

“The reality is this: we have created a system where the cure is worse than the disease. Regulatory agencies meant to protect consumers have become so numerous and so contradictory that they are now the primary threat to business viability.”

He continued: “In 2012, the Oronsaye Committee Report revealed that Nigeria had 541 statutory federal agencies. It recommended a drastic reduction to 163 – abolishing 38, merging 52, and reverting 14 to ministerial departments. The projected savings? A staggering N862 billion between 2012 and 2015.

“Fast forward to 2026. Rather than shrinking, the beast has grown. Nigeria now groans under the weight of over 900 MDAs. The Oronsaye Report, despite the Tinubu administration’s 2023 approval for selective implementation, remains largely a victim of bureaucratic self-preservation and political patronage. Fourteen years have passed; not a single recommendation has been fully implemented.”

In the meantime, “this proliferation of agencies has created a perverse incentive structure that turns regulators into predators. Many MDAs have morphed from protective regulators into aggressive revenue generators. When agencies justify their existence by the fees, levies, and fines they collect, enforcement becomes a profit centre. The private sector is treated not as an engine of growth but as a host to be parasitised.

“Consider the numbers: In the first half of 2025 alone, N658 billion was deducted as ‘cost of collection’ from federation revenue. Revenue agencies such as FIRS (retaining four per cent), NCS (retaining seven per cent), and NUPRC (retaining four per cent) have created a system in which the machinery of government feeds on itself. These deductions now exceed the total allocations to multiple states.”

In the real sense, “this is not regulation. This is legalised extortion. The idiom ‘killing the goose that laid the golden egg’ perfectly captures what is happening,” Oye noted. “We are so focused on extracting revenue from the private sector that we are destroying the very engine that generates that revenue.

“The economic impact is devastating. The National Development Plan 2021-2025 acknowledged that 85.7 per cent of the required investment must come from the private sector. Yet, we maintain a regulatory architecture that actively repels investment.

“We cannot simultaneously maintain a 900-agency bureaucracy and expect robust private sector investment. We cannot create overlapping regulatory jurisdictions and expect business confidence. We cannot treat compliance as a revenue opportunity and expect formal economic participation. We are trying to have it all, and we are getting nothing.

“Paradoxically, regulatory excess creates the very conditions it seeks to prevent. When formal compliance requires navigating a maze of overlapping agencies, each with its own fees and potential to shut down operations, small producers choose to remain invisible. They migrate to the informal sector, operating in the shadows, far from the reach of any regulator.”

Moving forward, Oye advised, “The choice before Nigeria’s policymakers is stark: continue down the path of bureaucratic proliferation, regulatory overlap, and economic suffocation, or have the courage to implement the structural reforms that have been gathering dust in the Oronsaye Report for 14 years.

“We are not asking for revolution. We are asking for the implementation of a 14-year-old reform blueprint. The private sector is bleeding. Investors are fleeing. Informal economic activity is exploding. And yet, we continue to add more agencies, more fees, more complexity. This is not governance. This is slow-motion economic suicide.

“To the policymakers reading this: You have the blueprint; you have the data. You have the moral authority. What you lack is the political will. The 900-headed monster will not slay itself; it will only grow fatter, more voracious, and more destructive. Only decisive leadership can break the chains of bureaucratic self-preservation and restore Nigeria’s regulatory architecture to its proper purpose: protecting citizens and enabling prosperity.

“The question is not whether reform is possible. It is whether Nigeria’s leaders dare to pursue it.”