The disclosure came from the Minister of State for Finance, Doris Uzoka-Anite, who spoke to our correspondent following the second National Economic Council Conference, held on February 9–10 at the State House Conference Centre, Abuja.
According to the Minister, the exercise, which seeks to document all government-owned assets nationwide, is currently about 50 per cent complete. “We are giving ourselves another one or two years to complete the asset registry,” she said.
The initiative is seen as a critical step toward addressing decades of documented losses linked to the government’s inability to maintain a coherent inventory of public assets. Experts note that this gap has historically contributed to inflated project costs, asset abandonment, and the duplication of government expenditures.
Recent findings reveal that the administration of President Bola Tinubu approved at least N929.06 billion for additions to road and bridge projects inherited from previous governments. Many of these projects had experienced cost escalations, delays, and scope adjustments.
The push for a centralized government asset registry was initially started under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, but the Tinubu government formally relaunched the project in March 2025 through the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
While the Minister did not provide an interim valuation for the assets already documented, the Ministry of Finance Incorporated currently manages an estimated N18 trillion in equity value across its 52 portfolio companies, employing more than 15,000 people. However, this figure only accounts for government-owned corporate shareholdings and excludes other critical assets such as land, infrastructure, oil and gas holdings, solid minerals, power infrastructure, and intellectual property—all of which are expected to be captured in the full National Asset Register (NAR).
The Ministry of Finance has set a target of growing the Federal Government’s total assets to N100 trillion within the next decade, with the NAR seen as a key tool to identify and unlock this value. The registry will track government-owned lands and buildings—including overseas properties—as well as infrastructure holdings such as roads, airports, bridges, and railways, in addition to financial instruments, natural resources, and intellectual property rights.
Reflecting on past challenges, Uzoka-Anite lamented the country’s struggle to translate its resource wealth into meaningful development outcomes. “Nigeria has a lot of resources. We are blessed with so many resources over the years. If you take all of our budgets and see how much we’ve allocated to projects, the sad part is that many are either abandoned, underutilized, or incomplete,” she said.
She also pointed to the lack of capable technical partners as a major obstacle to effective project delivery. “From the studies we’ve conducted, the right implementation mechanism is what’s missing. We can identify projects and provide funding, but without partners who can operate and maintain these assets effectively, progress stalls,” she explained.
To address this gap, the Federal Government is now prioritizing partnerships with technical collaborators who are willing to invest alongside the government rather than operate as mere concessionaires. A new public-private partnership model is being introduced, in which technical partners contribute financing while the government provides an enabling environment. “When you create the right environment, that becomes your equity contribution, and it helps crowd in private capital,” Uzoka-Anite added.
The Minister stressed that Nigeria has sufficient resources to finance its development agenda if properly harnessed. “The Central Bank has mopped up enormous funds through cash revenue ratios. Pension funds are substantial, and we have abundant natural resources—land, solid minerals, and oil. With the right financing and implementation mechanisms, we can unlock the country’s full potential,” she concluded.