…Says with N159.28trn debt, each Nigerian owes N670,000
The Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, Dele Oye, has raised the alarm over Nigeria’s accelerating debt profile and warned that the N65.9 trillion borrowed under President Bola Tinubu in just 24 months has outstripped the country’s cumulative borrowing over the previous 55 years, which is about N12 trillion.
He added that the nation’s total debt stock, now put at N159.28 trillion, translates to an average burden of about N670,000 on every Nigerian, a development he said highlights the growing fiscal pressure and sustainability concerns in coming years.
Oye, who is the immediate past chairman of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN), 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 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% increase. The Central Bank 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. President Bola 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 current administration has added more than five times that amount in 24 months.”
According to Oye, “Governments love to quote the debt-to-GDP ratio. Nigeria’s is 35.5% well below the IMF’s 55% distress threshold, and far more comfortable-looking than South Africa’s 78.8% or Kenya’s 65.6%. 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% in 2024, easing only slightly to 113% in Q1 2025, according to the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG). In January 2025 alone, the CBN’s own 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% coverage ratio in a single month.
“The reason for this paradox is brutally simple: Nigeria has a large economy but collects almost nothing from it. The country’s tax-to-GDP ratio is just 8.2%, the lowest among major African economies. South Africa collects 24% of its GDP in taxes. Kenya collects 16%. Ghana collects 13%. The Sub-Saharan African average is 15%. Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy by GDP and most populous nation, manages 8.2%. Every percentage point Nigeria fails to collect is a school not built, a road not paved, a soldier not paid.
“The 2026 Appropriation Act, signed by President Tinubu in April 2026, totals N68.32 trillion, the largest budget in Nigeria’s history. Of this, N15.8 trillion is earmarked for debt servicing alone. That single line item exceeds the entire N15.4 trillion budgeted for recurrent non-debt expenditure. It is more than Nigeria will spend on education, health, and security combined.
“Meanwhile, the fiscal deficit in the 2026 budget is projected at approximately N25.3 trillion roughly 4.5% of GDP, well above the 3% ceiling mandated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The law is being broken in the very document that is supposed to uphold it.”
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.”
He advised, “The prescriptions are not secret: digitize tax collection and broaden the base; enforce the Fiscal Responsibility Act with criminal sanctions; restructure Eurobond maturities before the 2027–2029 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.”
“Nigeria does not have a debt problem. It has a revenue problem wearing a debt costume. For 237 million Nigerians the farmer in Benue, the trader in Onitsha, the graduate in Lagos who cannot find a job because interest rates are too high for any employer to borrow and expand this is not an abstract fiscal debate. It is the reason the roads are broken, the hospitals are empty, and the lights go out. The numbers do not lie. The question is whether the people in power are finally ready,” Oye added.
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