Critical infrastructure required for a nation to thrive is not just limited to roads and bridges. It includes the systems and frameworks that allow government to function effectively.
The Treasury Single Account is infrastructure in the truest sense: foundational, essential, and irreplaceable.
When we talk about protecting the TSA, it is not defending a pollical dispensation, an era, a vendor or even a technology platform.
It is protecting the principle that government finances should be managed with transparency and accountability. It is about preserving a system that, for the first time in Nigeria’s modern history, gives the treasury actual control over public resources.
No government will demolish a bridge because it was commissioned by its predecessor, even though millions rely on it daily to cross safely.
The value of the bridge lies in the service it provides, not in the name on the plaque at its opening ceremony. Same way, the TSA is institutional infrastructure.
It serves Nigeria’s fiscal integrity. In matters of public finance, continuity should be guided by what works, not by who first proposed it.
Consider what would happen if the TSA were dismantled or significantly weakened. We would return to fragmentation.
Money would once again scatter across multiple accounts. Visibility would disappear. The loopholes that the TSA closed would reopen. And we would be back where we started, trying to manage government finances without actually knowing where those finances are.
This is not hypothetical. We know what the pre-TSA era looked like because we lived through it. We know the waste, the opacity, the unchecked diversion of resources.
We know what happens when government operates without fiscal discipline. Going back to that system would be a policy choice with catastrophic consequences.
Some argue that the TSA should be modified to allow more flexibility. But flexibility in public finance is often code for discretion, and discretion is what enabled corruption to flourish in the first place. The TSA’s supposed rigidity is actually structure, and structure is what accountability requires.
This does not mean the system cannot be improved. Every system can be refined. Reconciliation processes can be streamlined.
Approval workflows can be optimised. Technology can be upgraded. But improvement must not be confused with abandonment.
The TSA is not just a banking arrangement. It is a statement about what kind of country we aspire to be. It represents a commitment to transparency over opacity, accountability over discretion, public interest over private convenience.
Protecting the TSA is therefore a matter of national interest. It is about preserving gains that were hard-won and remain fragile. It is about refusing to slip back into dysfunction simply because discipline is demanding. It is about recognising that some infrastructure, once lost, may never be rebuilt.
We must approach any discussion about the TSA’s future with this understanding. The stakes are higher than any single reform.
We are deciding whether Nigeria will move forward into greater transparency and accountability, or whether we will retreat into the familiar darkness of the past.
Segun Awosika, a public analyst, wrote from Lagos.
