Nigeria’s government pushed back Monday against claims that President Bola Tinubu’s administration borrowed about ₦80 trillion in three years, telling senators most of the rise came from currency revaluation and accounting recognition, not new loans.
The dispute matters because the number frames Nigeria’s biggest economic anxiety. Public debt stood near ₦75 trillion when Tinubu took office in 2023, and commentators comparing that figure with today’s stock have concluded the administration nearly doubled it, feeding public alarm over debt sustainability amid continuing hardship.
Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Taiwo Oyedele made the government’s case before the Senate Committee on Finance, chaired by Senator Sani Musa, in response to questioning from Senator Adamu Aliero of Kebbi Central. His explanation rests on two large adjustments. First, the naira’s sharp depreciation under the administration’s reforms inflated the local currency value of Nigeria’s existing foreign debt, since national debt is reported in naira. “That accounting adjustment alone added more than ₦40 trillion to the public debt figure,” he said. Second, the National Assembly’s approval to securitise the central bank’s Ways and Means advances added about ₦33 trillion, which he described as formally recognising obligations inherited from the previous administration rather than fresh borrowing. He added that much of the administration’s domestic borrowing has refinanced existing debt, and framed its approach as borrowing strictly for infrastructure, with debt treated as leverage expected to generate more value than it costs.
Taken together, the two adjustments Oyedele cited account for roughly ₦73 trillion of the disputed ₦80 trillion increase, implying actual new borrowing in the low trillions of naira on the government’s own telling. Two caveats attend that framing. The revalued foreign debt is not merely a bookkeeping entry for citizens: servicing dollar obligations now consumes far more naira than before the depreciation, so the burden the larger figure represents is real even if the borrowing is not new. And the securitised Ways and Means advances, while inherited, remain debts Nigeria must repay.
The senators did not confine themselves to definitions. Committee members, led by Chief Whip Mohammed Monguno, criticised what they called poor implementation of the capital component of the 2026 budget, and Monguno questioned Federation Account allocations, asking why about ₦1.7 trillion was reportedly retained after roughly ₦3.7 trillion accrued. Oyedele said he was not familiar with those specific figures but maintained no monthly allocation under the administration had fallen below ₦2 trillion. Aliero, while acknowledging infrastructure gains such as the Lagos Calabar Coastal Highway, pressed that budget delivery fell short of expectations.
The exchange leaves the factual question answerable: Nigeria’s Debt Management Office publishes the debt stock and its currency composition, and independent analysts can separate revaluation from new issuance. Until that reconciliation is laid out publicly, line by line, both the ₦80 trillion charge and the government’s rebuttal will keep passing each other in the dark.
