President Bola Tinubu has been advised to reduce borrowing to fund projects. The call was made by the Country Director, GOALPrime Organisation Nigeria, Professor Christopher Chinedumuije.
He noted that seeking foreign loans to fund the national budget was “cycle fiscally irresponsible, economically unjust, and morally indefensible.”
Chinedumuije made this known on the occasion of the second anniversary of the Tinubu administration.
He said that, “As a concerned citizen and patriot who sees a nation gradually collapsing under the weight of borrowed survival. As we commemorate two years into the Renewed Hope Administration and as states begin preparing their 2026 budgets, one truth must be accepted without excuses: Nigeria cannot continue to borrow to fund the national budget. This cycle is fiscally irresponsible, economically unjust, and morally indefensible.”
According to him, while relying on statistics from the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s total public debt stock as of December 2024 stood at ₦97.3 trillion (about $115 billion), adding that “debt servicing alone accounted for ₦8.25 trillion, more than 74% of the total projected federal revenue for 2024 (Budget Office, 2024). In Q1 2025, debt servicing consumed over 90% of federal retained revenue (CSEA Nigeria, 2025; BudgIT, 2025).
“We are borrowing to pay salaries. We are borrowing to run ministries. We are borrowing to maintain a bloated, inefficient government. This is not governance. It is slow national asphyxiation,” he said.
While proffering solutions to stem the practice of borrowing to fund projects, Chinedumuije urged Tinubu to devolve development plans and actions to the states and the local governments that are closer to the people whose lives and businesses require urgent interventions.
“The president needs to assign clear constitutional responsibilities for primary healthcare, basic education, and rural infrastructure to states and LGAs with funding to match,” he added.
He urged President Tinubu to establish State and LGA Development Coordination Councils empowered to manage donor projects and national social investments.
“Incentivize state-led innovations through competitive development grants from the federal government and development partners,” Chinedumuije stated.
