To finance the 2026 budget, the Federal Government “is planning to borrow about ₦20 trillion”.
This move has been described as “troubling” by former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi.
The plan to borrow “about ₦20 trillion” is coming when Nigeria’s borrowing requirement has surpassed “72%”, and debt servicing alone is projected to swallow “half of our national revenue”.
Reacting to the new development by the FG on X, Obi said: “Nigerians woke up again to the troubling news that the Federal Government is planning to borrow about ₦20 trillion in new loans to finance the 2026 budget. This is at a time when debt servicing alone is projected to gulp nearly half of our national revenue, and when our borrowing requirement has surged by over 72%.”
The 2023 Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) said, this suggests that, the 2025 budget “is still untouched and unimplemented”, adding, the citizens of the country are still battling with “unprecedented hardship, insecurity, and unemployment”.
He called for a “stop” to the “fiscal rascality” particularly with “uncontrolled and unexplained” borrowing without any investment in productive areas of the country.
Obi further reacted: “At a time when Nigerians are struggling under unprecedented hardship, insecurity, and unemployment, we must ask the most important and logical questions: Where is the revenue from 2025?
“How can we be discussing trillions in new borrowing for 2026 when we are still implementing the 2024 budget? One is genuinely worried. This suggests, very clearly, that the 2025 budget is still untouched and unimplemented.
“So, where are all the revenues that accrued in 2025, even when we were told that we had surpassed the revenue targets since August?
“It is time for us to stop this fiscal rascality, especially with uncontrolled and unexplained borrowing that is not being invested in the productive sectors of our nation, but instead ends up in consumption.
“We cannot keep mortgaging the future of our children through thoughtless borrowing.We cannot continue this way.
“For years, I have consistently maintained that Nigeria cannot borrow its way into prosperity.
“We cannot build a new Nigeria on the foundation of misleading figures, rising debts, shrinking production, and continuous hardship.”
