Nigeria’s Debt Jump Driven by Accounting, Not Borrowing – FG
Nigeria’s public debt has become the most contested number in the country’s fiscal conversation, and the Federal Government moved on Monday to reclaim the narrative, telling senators that the widely repeated figure of N80 trillion in fresh borrowing under President Bola Tinubu is exaggerated and rooted more in accounting than in new loans.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, made the argument before the Senate Committee on Finance during an economic review session, responding to a pointed question from Senator Adamu Aliero, representing Kebbi Central, on reports that the administration had piled about N80 trillion onto the roughly N75 trillion it inherited.
“When this administration came into office, public debt was around N75 trillion,” Oyedele told the committee. “Many people simply compare that figure with today’s debt stock and conclude that this government has borrowed massively.” He said the comparison ignored two large, one off adjustments that inflated the naira headline figure without a single fresh loan being drawn.
The first, according to him, was currency revaluation. “Following the reforms and the depreciation of the naira, the foreign currency component of our public debt had to be revalued because Nigeria reports its debt in naira. That accounting adjustment alone added more than N40 trillion to the public debt figure,” he said. The second was the securitisation of the Ways and Means advances inherited from the previous administration. “About N33 trillion was added to the public debt through that process. It was not new borrowing; it was simply bringing previously existing obligations onto the official debt books,” he stated, adding that much of the government’s domestic borrowing was refinancing of maturing debt rather than net new debt.
The figures on the public record give the debate its weight. According to the Debt Management Office, Nigeria’s total public debt stood at N159.28 trillion, or about 110.97 billion dollars, as at December 31, 2025. That was up 10.1 percent, or N14.61 trillion, from N144.67 trillion a year earlier, and up N5.98 trillion, or 3.9 percent, from N153.29 trillion in September 2025. The DMO computed the December stock using an official exchange rate of N1,435.26 to the dollar, compared with N1,474.85 three months earlier, an illustration of how sensitive the naira headline is to the currency.
The trajectory explains why the number alarms many observers. DMO records put the total at N87.38 trillion when former President Muhammadu Buhari left office in May 2023, meaning roughly N71.8 trillion, or about 45 percent of the current stock, has accumulated during Tinubu’s tenure. An analysis by the civic group BudgIT noted that the debt stood at N33.13 trillion in 2021, placing the four year rise at about 380 percent. Daily Trust, working off a population estimate of about 220 million, calculated an average burden of roughly N724,000 per citizen.
Oyedele’s core defence rests on how that increase is composed rather than its size. By his accounting, the N40 trillion revaluation and the N33 trillion securitisation together explain the greater part of the rise since mid 2023, leaving actual fresh borrowing far below popular estimates. It is worth noting, for context, that official DMO data recorded the stock at about N87.38 trillion by May 2023, a figure that already captured the first tranche of Ways and Means securitisation, while the minister referenced a baseline of about N75 trillion. The two figures reflect different starting points rather than a contradiction, since the National Assembly approved the securitisation of about N22.72 trillion in Central Bank Ways and Means advances in 2023, with further tranches following.
Ways and Means financing sits at the heart of the argument. It refers to short term overdrafts the Central Bank extends to the Federal Government to cover temporary revenue shortfalls, a facility the law caps but which was drawn far beyond statutory limits under the previous administration. Converting those overdrafts into formal, long dated securities did not create new spending, but it did move a large hidden liability onto the visible debt books, lifting the reported total in a single stroke.
The currency argument is equally grounded in recent history. When the administration unified the foreign exchange windows in June 2023 and floated the naira, the currency slid from around N460 to the dollar to well above N1,400, roughly tripling the naira value of every dollar of external debt overnight even where no new external loan was taken. External debt stood at N74.43 trillion, or about 51.86 billion dollars, at the end of 2025, with domestic debt at N84.85 trillion, or 53.27 percent of the total.
What tempers the government’s reassurance is the cost of carrying the debt. The 2026 budget earmarks in the region of N15.9 trillion for debt servicing, a sum that analysts estimate will consume between 43 and 50 percent of projected revenue before a naira is spent on salaries, roads, schools or hospitals. Servicing costs have climbed steeply over the past decade, from N942 billion in 2014 to N4.2 trillion in 2021 and N12.6 trillion in 2024, according to BudgIT. The IMF, for its part, projects Nigeria’s debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio at 32.3 percent in 2026, down from 35.5 percent in 2025 and comfortably below the 60 percent threshold often cited as a caution line, though economists consistently stress that Nigeria’s problem is weak revenue rather than the raw size of the debt.
The macroeconomic backdrop offers the administration some cover. The National Bureau of Statistics reported headline inflation at 15.91 percent in June 2026, easing marginally from 15.93 percent in May and down sharply from 25.29 percent a year earlier, aided by the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index. Yet the relief is uneven. State level data showed Niger at 42.23 percent, Kogi at 41.59 percent and the Federal Capital Territory at 39.91 percent, keeping price pressure well above 30 percent in a large cluster of states even as the national number cools. Government has also pointed to Gross Domestic Product growth of 3.98 percent in the third quarter of 2025 and external reserves that touched a seven year high above 47 billion dollars.
The politics around the numbers is intensifying ahead of 2027. Opposition figures have made debt and cost of living central to their messaging, with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar arguing that the country cannot borrow and import its way to prosperity, and former President Goodluck Jonathan and Peter Obi reported to have met on presenting a single opposition candidate. Against that, the executive has continued to seek approvals, including a request in March 2026 for six billion dollars in external financing to support the budget, while the DMO noted that the December stock excluded a separately approved N8.3 trillion in facilities from the United Arab Emirates and UK Export Finance, which will lift future figures.
Not all of the pushback on Monday came from the opposition benches. Some lawmakers faulted the slow release of capital funds. The Senate Chief Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno of Borno North, was reported to have described the non implementation of the capital component of the budget as a serious constitutional issue, a concern Aliero echoed. The Committee Chairman, Senator Sani Musa of Niger East, defended the economic team while conceding that reform should be measured by improvements in citizens’ lives, and floated a shift to performance and priority based budgeting to replace the envelope system.
Oyedele, for his part, framed borrowing as a tool rather than a trap. “This administration has been very responsible in its borrowing,” he said. “We see debt as leverage. Every naira and every dollar borrowed should generate more value than the amount borrowed.” Whether the productive returns he promises materialise, and whether servicing costs leave room for them, will determine if Monday’s reassurances hold as the 2026 budget moves from paper to implementation.