Peter Obi has raised alarm over Nigeria’s ballooning debt profile, warning that the country is on track to surpass ₦200 trillion in public debt by the end of 2025.
Reacting to the Senate’s approval of an additional $21 billion, €2.2 billion, and ¥15 billion in foreign loans on July 22, as well as ₦750.98 billion in domestic bonds, Obi described the borrowing as reckless and lacking in measurable impact on national development.
“With an already existing public debt of about ₦149.39 trillion as at the first quarter of 2025, adding the approved loans of about ₦37.2 trillion brings our current total debt to about ₦187 trillion,” Obi stated via his official X handle on Tuesday.
He expressed concern that the nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio was at its highest level in history.
“Even after the rebasing, which pushed our GDP to about ₦372.8 trillion (about $243.7 billion), the government would have borrowed about 50.16% of the new GDP (with the approved loans),” he added.
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Obi argued that despite the increase in borrowing, there has been no corresponding improvement in critical areas.
“We are accumulating very exponential levels of unsustainable debt with little or nothing to show for it in critical areas such as education, healthcare, electricity generation, security of lives and property, and pulling people out of poverty.”
He decried the worsening state of human development indicators, highlighting deteriorating security, widespread poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a worsening malnutrition crisis.
“This is a country blessed with enormous resources, yet nobody should go to bed hungry. Still, a persistent deficiency in leadership has thrown the majority of our citizens into increasing multi-dimensional poverty,” he said.
Obi warned that borrowing without accountability was “mortgaging the future of our children,” urging the government to “return to a disciplined and prudent economic management culture.”
“It is time to stop this fiscal indiscipline. We must build a New Nigeria, where leadership is responsible, development is people-centred, and every kobo borrowed or spent delivers a measurable impact,” Obi said.