By John Alechenu, Abuja
The Labour Get together (LP)’s presidential candidate within the 2023 common election, Peter Obi, has once more decried what he described as President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s penchant for reckless borrowing with out accountability.
Obi spoke in response to the newest exterior borrowing plan accredited by the Senate.
The Nigerian Senate had accredited one other exterior borrowing of $21 billion, €2.2 billion, and ¥15 billion for the 2025–2026 fiscal cycle.
The previous Anambra State governor famous that with the newest approval, Nigeria’s debt now stands at N187 trillion with palpable worry that it’d climb to N200 trillion earlier than the tip of the yr.
Writing on his X deal with on Tuesday, Obi mentioned, “On July 22, 2025, the Nigerian Senate accredited a further $21 billion, €2.2 billion, and ¥15 billion of exterior borrowing for the 2025–2026 fiscal cycle.
“It additionally accredited a N750.98 billion home bond issuance and a €65.65 million grant. With an already present public debt of about N149.39 trillion as of the primary quarter of 2025, including the accredited loans of about N37.2 trillion brings our present complete debt to about N187 trillion, with considerations that our debt may seemingly be over N200 trillion by the tip of 2025.
“As our GDP earlier than rebasing was about N269.2 trillion (about $180 billion), the federal government has borrowed the equal of almost 70% of our earlier GDP. Even after the rebasing, which pushed our GDP to about N372.8 trillion (about $243.7 billion), the federal government would have borrowed about 50.16% of the brand new GDP (with the accredited loans), the very best debt-to-GDP ratio in our historical past as a nation.
“Whereas the year-on-year enhance is about N27.72 trillion and the quarter-on-quarter enhance is about N4.72 trillion, we’re accumulating very exponential ranges of unsustainable debt with little or nothing to point out for it in vital areas comparable to training, healthcare, electrical energy technology, safety of lives and property, and pulling individuals out of poverty.
“We nonetheless rank low in all main human growth indicators. Whereas training is underfunded and the usual is in steady decline, healthcare stays inaccessible to hundreds of thousands of Nigerians, significantly the poor.
“Safety of lives and property has deteriorated, with over 10,217 individuals killed and 672 villages sacked between Might twenty ninth, 2023, and Might twenty ninth, 2025, even when safety spending has considerably elevated from N2.98 trillion in 2023 to N4.91 trillion in 2025.
“Infrastructure decay persists throughout the nation, with about 135,000 km of our 195,000 km of roads remaining unpaved, largely unmotorable, and unusable.
“It’s the identical miserable state of affairs in virtually all sectors of the economic system, with the ability sector an unquestionable instance, with lower than 5,000 MW provided for over 200 million Nigerians.
“At this time, over two years after the current authorities took over and with all of the humongous borrowing, we’re nonetheless confronted with unfavorable reviews of worsening poverty with about 133 million (63%) Nigerians labeled as multi-dimensionally poor, rising unemployment, and disheartening information like 652 kids lifeless because the malnutrition disaster worsens in Northern Nigeria.
“Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), often known as Docs With out Borders, has simply sounded the alarm over an escalating malnutrition disaster in Northern Nigeria, with Katsina State rising as one of many worst-hit areas.
“It is a nation blessed with monumental assets, but no person ought to go to mattress hungry. Nonetheless, a persistent deficiency in management has thrown the vast majority of our residents into rising multi-dimensional poverty.
“Borrowing is just not inherently unhealthy whether it is sustainable and tied to productive investments with measurable outcomes. Sadly, this present sample of borrowing with out accountability, with out transparency, and with out transformational influence is just mortgaging the way forward for our youngsters.
“The federal government ought to think about the intergenerational penalties of their unsustainable borrowings and present a minimum of a minimal consideration and curiosity in the way forward for younger and unborn Nigerians.
“We should return to a disciplined and prudent financial administration tradition, chopping the price of governance, blocking leakages, investing in human capital, and constructing a productive economic system. Nigeria can not proceed to borrow recklessly whereas poverty deepens and public belief erodes.
“It’s time to cease this fiscal indiscipline. We should construct a New Nigeria, the place management is accountable, growth is people-centred, and each kobo borrowed or spent delivers a measurable influence to attain sustainable and inclusive growth and progress.”
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