By Emmanuel Kwada
A private security guard in Mararba, Mr. Daniel Attah, stands outside a half-lit estate at 6 p.m., his torch flickering as he speaks in a voice thick with exhaustion. “It is disheartening seriously seeing what our leaders are doing. We barely feed our families since the subsidy removal. Things have gone sour, but you keep hearing loan this, loan that every time. Who did we offend as Nigerians? Our leaders should please forgive us if in any way we have erred.”
His words capture the quiet despair now echoing in homes across the country, where the weight of President Bola Tinubu’s borrowing binge falls heaviest on those least able to carry it.
In just 29 months since Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, Nigeria has borrowed or securitized approximately ₦98.65 trillion, an average of ₦3.4 trillion every month. This sum equals about 65 percent of the country’s projected 2025 GDP of roughly ₦152 trillion.
Translated into human terms, every Nigerian, from infants to the elderly, now shoulders a personal debt of about ₦470,000 from new borrowings under this administration alone.
Most of the money has come from within Nigeria itself, with federal government bonds and Treasury Bills swallowing over ₦70 trillion. Multilateral lenders like the World Bank and African Development Bank have poured in around ₦15.8 trillion in dollar loans, while the conversion of ₦22.7 trillion in Central Bank overdrafts inherited from the Buhari era added another crushing layer. Smaller slices came from commercial Eurobonds and Nigeria’s inaugural Sukuk issuance.
The pain begins with debt servicing, which now devours more than half of federal revenues. In 2023, Nigeria paid ₦7.8 trillion in interest alone, a figure that climbed to ₦9.2 trillion in 2024 and is expected to surpass ₦10.4 trillion in 2025, exceeding the entire capital budget for roads, railways, and hospitals combined.
Domestic banks, chasing yields of 26 to 28 percent on government securities, have largely abandoned private lending. Small businesses face loan rates of 35 to 40 percent when credit is available at all, stifling manufacturing and erasing over two million formal-sector jobs in the past two years.
A civil servant in Gwagwalada, speaking anonymously to TGNEWS, painted a grim picture of daily life under this strain. “The problem is not taking the loan; every country takes loans. But how has it been utilized? Have you seen the impact on the economy? We cannot sleep with our two eyes closed because of insecurity from bandits, Fulani herdsmen, even petty robbers our security men cannot handle.
“We contribute ₦5,000 every month per flat to secure ourselves from armed robbers, or you lose your phones, electronics, properties to them. Farmers cannot access their farms. I heard farmers are selling their belongings to raise ₦20 million levied on them by bandits in one of the northwest states. Farmers have also abandoned farms in Plateau. Is this the country we want? I am tired seriously.”
The naira’s collapse has turned every borrowed dollar into a moving target. Since 2023, the currency has lost 67 percent of its value against the dollar, meaning each billion dollars in external debt balloons by ₦1.53 trillion when converted to naira.
The Debt Management Office recorded ₦3.01 trillion added to the debt stock in a single quarter purely from exchange rate losses. This fuels a vicious cycle: more borrowing demands more dollars, the naira weakens further, imports become costlier, and inflation surges to 34.2 percent, the highest in nearly three decades.
In the medium term, Nigeria is locked in a currency devaluation spiral. Inflation erodes purchasing power, shrinks consumer demand, and widens revenue gaps that only new loans can fill.
International rating agencies have punished the country harshly. Fitch downgraded Nigeria to B-minus in November 2025, driving Eurobond yields to 12.5 percent and making future external borrowing far more expensive. At the state level, 28 out of 36 governors now spend over 60 percent of their internally generated revenue on debt service, with seven already in technical default and unable to pay salaries on time.
Mr. Stephen, a building engineer in Abuja, spoke with bitter resignation. “Nobody wants to just run from his country ordinarily, but you can see even our medical doctors, youths are running at the slightest given opportunity. I can bet you; everybody will leave Nigeria if opportunity is given because solution is not forthcoming.
Year in, year out, problems keep increasing. The funniest part is our leaders are living large but they care less about those that voted them in. They keep adding VAT, removed subsidy with no positive impact.”
For ordinary Nigerians, the burden shows up in the price of survival. A litre of fuel that cost ₦250 in 2023 now sells for ₦1,000. A 50-kilogram bag of rice has leapt from ₦28,000 to ₦82,000.
Though the minimum wage rose from ₦30,000 to ₦70,000, inflation has erased that gain, leaving real incomes about 25 percent lower than two years ago. The World Bank now estimates 40.1 percent of Nigerians live in poverty, up from 33 percent before Tinubu took office.
The government maintains the loans are investments in infrastructure and growth, pointing to projects like the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, eastern rail rehabilitation, and power sector loans.
Yet the reality is bleak. Less than five percent of the borrowed trillions has reached actual construction sites. The coastal highway has received only ₦1.2 trillion out of a ₦15 trillion budget, with not a single kilometer completed. The $3 billion rail project lingers in the design phase, and the recently approved $2.3 billion power loan remains untouched.
The breaking point may arrive sooner than expected. The International Monetary Fund projects debt service could consume 70 percent of federal revenue by mid-2026. If oil prices drop below $60 per barrel, the naira could hit ₦2,500 to the dollar. Three states are already in technical default, and others may soon follow.
History offers little reassurance. Under President Obasanjo, aggressive debt repayment cleared $12 billion in Paris Club obligations and coincided with average growth of 6.5 percent. Under Buhari, debt quadrupled while growth averaged just 1.1 percent. Under Tinubu, debt has surged 113 percent in less than three years, yet per capita GDP is falling despite headline growth of 3.1 percent.
In the end, the loan spree is not merely a balance sheet crisis. It is a slow erosion of economic stability. Every naira borrowed today is a lien on tomorrow’s earnings, and with half of today’s revenue already pledged to interest payments, there is less left for schools, hospitals, or wages.
For the average Nigerian, the promise of renewal has become a daily battle against rising prices, shrinking opportunities, and a future increasingly mortgaged to creditors. The bills are coming due, and they are written in a currency most citizens no longer recognize.
