The Federal Government has dismissed claims that the President Bola Tinubu administration borrowed about ₦80 trillion within its first three years in office, describing the figures as misleading and driven largely by accounting adjustments rather than fresh borrowing.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, made the clarification on Tuesday while briefing the Senate Committee on Finance on the state of the nation’s economy.
Responding to concerns raised by lawmakers over reports that the current administration had accumulated about ₦80 trillion in new debt in addition to the ₦75 trillion it inherited, the minister said the figures being circulated by some commentators and media reports did not accurately reflect the government’s borrowing.
According to Edun, Nigeria’s public debt stood at approximately ₦75 trillion when President Tinubu assumed office, but economic reforms and the depreciation of the naira significantly increased the naira value of the country’s external debt.
He explained that because Nigeria reports its public debt in naira, the sharp depreciation of the local currency required the foreign currency component of the debt to be revalued, resulting in an increase of more than ₦40 trillion in the overall debt stock without any new borrowing.
The minister further stated that the securitisation of the Ways and Means advances, which was approved by the National Assembly, added about ₦33 trillion to the public debt profile.
He stressed that the amount represented existing obligations that had been formally recognised and converted into long-term debt, rather than fresh loans obtained by the current administration.
Meanwhile, members of the Senate Committee on Finance expressed concern over what they described as the poor implementation of the capital component of the 2026 budget, urging the government to improve budget execution to accelerate infrastructure development and economic growth.
