The numbers are chilling. As of December 31, 2024, Nigeria’s total public debt has ballooned to a staggering ₦144.67 trillion (approximately $94.23 billion), according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). In its latest debt statistics released last Friday, the ₦144.67 trillion, representing a steep 48.58% year-on-year increase, was traced to new external borrowings and the impact of naira depreciation, which raised the naira equivalent of dollar-denominated debt. According to the DMO, the statistics equally revealed a quarter-on-quarter rise of 1.65 per cent from the N142.32 trillion ($88.89 billion) recorded at the end of September 2024. This unsavory development underscored the unabating rise in the nation’s public debt profile. This is no mere statistic; it is an indictment of the administration of President Bola Tinubu. A 48.58% increase in a single year is not just unsustainable, it is apocalyptic. The country’s fiscal trajectory is no longer a slope; it is a plunge into the abyss, and we are dragging unborn generations with us and shackling their future.
To make matters worse, this debt crisis is not just a federal affliction. It has metastasized across the federation, infecting all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. Every arm of governance now gorges on loans like an addict starved of restraint. And for what? Crumbling infrastructure, deepening poverty, decaying healthcare systems, and a broken education sector? Behind the smokescreen of “fiscal reforms” and “strategic planning retreats” in foreign capitals like France – yes, Mr. President, this one is for you – is a bitter reality that Nigerians must wake up to: the country is living on borrowed oxygen.
A nation that borrows to consume rather than to produce is digging its own grave. That is the tragedy of borrowing without building. Nigeria borrows to pay salaries, to subsidize corruption, to fund bloated government bureaucracy, and to service existing debt. There is no legacy of railways and speed trains connecting Nigerian cities and industrial centers, no stable power infrastructure, no world-class reference or teaching hospitals, no thriving industrial corridors birthed by these borrowings.
Instead, we have a circus of international junkets under the guise of working visits, most recently, yet another two-week sojourn in Paris, France by President Tinubu, where he will reportedly “review reforms and mid-term performance.” One wonders: could the ruins of a failing economy and the out-of-control cost of living not serve as enough of a reflection? And if France must be mentioned, let us remind ourselves that this is the same country that backed Biafra during Nigeria’s civil war and has continued to hold former African French colonies hostage in a neo-colonial chokehold through predatory economic arrangements and toxic diplomacy. Why must our leaders always run to our historical exploiters for validation?
The debt woes are not just Abuja’s to bear. The States are subnational timebombs. Most of the 36 states are knee-deep in the red, with many unable to pay salaries or pensions without monthly allocations from the federal government. States like Lagos, Kaduna, Rivers, and Cross River have amassed debts in the hundreds of billions of naira, while offering little to show by way of developmental transformation.
This is not fiscal federalism; it is fiscal lunacy. The true danger lies in the illusion of solvency. With the naira crashing against foreign currencies and oil revenue trickling, Nigeria is financing its debt largely by issuing more debt. A classic Ponzi scheme masquerading as economic reform and management.
We must call this what it is: a betrayal of the Nigerian child yet to be born. Every additional loan taken today is a theft from tomorrow. It mortgages our sovereignty, sells our dignity, and enshrines poverty as a permanent condition. The time for half-measures has passed. It is time for bold and bitter medicine. As an urgent national imperative, the federal government must, among other things, immediately halt all non-essential foreign travel by public officials, including the President, to reduce the high cost of governance. The federal government should also impose strict limits on subnational borrowing by state governors. If the States must borrow, then every naira of the loan must be tied to measurable, productive infrastructure.
Additionally, the National Assembly should enact constitutional reform requiring a public referendum or a vote by two-thirds majority in both legislative chambers, before any key debt threshold is crossed. Most importantly, the legislature should hold hearings on the country’s unsustainable debt and hire a reputable audit firm should be hired to conduct forensic audits of all loans taken in the last 10 years by the federal government and the 36 States of the federation.
Nigeria is on a fiscal ventilator. If we do not act now, the debt will not just bury our economy; it will bury our nationhood. Let President Tinubu return home immediately; not just from France, but from fantasy, and face the ruin he was elected to redeem. Let the State governors rise; not as feudal barons of debt, but as stewards of generational legacy. We must choose: to continue on this road of servitude or to pull the emergency brake and chart a path of national dignity and economic sanity. The clock is ticking, and the debt is compounding. Time is no longer money; it is a debt bomb.
