‘Tinubu’s borrowing in 24 months surpasses 55 years’ debt record’

Says with N159.28tr debt, every Nigerian owes N670,000

Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, Dele Oye, has lamented the unprecedented rise in public debt under President Bola Tinubu, noting that the N65.9 trillion borrowed by the administration in the last 24 months is more than five times the total debt Nigeria incurred in the first 55 years of its Independence.

Oye, who is the immediate past chairman of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN), noted that while successive governments accumulated debt over decades, the Tinubu administration alone added N65.9 trillion in two years, compared to just N12 trillion accumulated over 55 years.

He revealed that, with Nigeria’s total public debt of N159.28 trillion as of April 2026, according to the Debt Management Office, every Nigerian owes N670,000, lamenting the rapid expansion of Nigeria’s debt profile in recent years.

Oye cautioned that unless urgent measures are taken to strengthen revenue generation and fiscal discipline, the rising debt burden could place long-term pressure on public finances and constrain government spending on critical sectors.

He said: “Cast your mind back to 2006. Nigeria had just pulled off one of the most celebrated fiscal feats in African history. President Olusegun Obasanjo paid $12 billion to extinguish $30 billion in Paris Club debt. Nigeria was, briefly, externally debt-free. The Excess Crude Account (ECA) was flush. The future looked fundable. Twenty years later, that golden moment reads like a fairy tale. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, debt crept back to N12.06 trillion by 2015, manageable, but the warning signs were already blinking. Then came the Buhari years.

“In eight years, the debt exploded from N12.06 trillion to N87.38 trillion, a 620 per cent increase. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was pressed into printing money through ‘Ways and Means’ advances; N23.7 trillion of this was eventually securitised into long-term bonds, effectively converting a government overdraft into a generational liability.

“Tinubu’s administration has added a further N65.9 trillion in just two years. To put that in perspective: it took Nigeria’s first 55 years of independence to accumulate N12 trillion in debt. The present administration has added more than five times that amount in 24 months.”

According to Oye, governments love to quote the debt-to-GDP ratio, adding: “Nigeria’s is 35.5 per cent below the 55 per cent distress threshold of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and far more comfortable-looking than South Africa’s 78.8 per cent or Kenya’s 65.6 per cent. Politicians wave this number like a clean bill of health.

“Do not be deceived. The number that actually matters is the debt service-to-revenue ratio of how much of every naira earned goes straight to paying creditors. Nigeria’s ratio stood at 116.8 per cent in 2024, easing only slightly to 113 per cent in Q1 2025, according to the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG). In January 2025 alone, CBN’s data showed the Federal Government paying out N696.27 billion in debt service against total retained revenue of just N483.47 billion. That is a 144 per cent coverage ratio in a single month.”

Noting that Nigeria has the potential to overcome the challenges, Oye said, “Nigeria has the tools. It has talent. What it has lacked, consistently and consequentially, is the political will to deploy them.

“The prescriptions are not secret: digitise tax collection and broaden the base; enforce the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) with criminal sanctions; restructure Eurobond maturities before the 2027 to 2029 redemption wall arrives; channel oil windfalls into a constitutionally protected stabilisation fund; and empower states to generate their own revenue rather than queue at Abuja’s door every month.” (Guardian)