Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has expressed sadness at reports that President Bola Tinubu is in discussions with the World Bank for another $1.25 billion loan facility, describing the administration’s appetite for foreign debt “as reckless, opaque and dangerously habitual”.

Atiku, in a statement on Sunday in Abuja by one of his media aides, Olusola Sanni, said it was both troubling and unconscionable that an administration which promised economic renewal had instead become synonymous with industrial-scale borrowing, with no corresponding improvement in the daily lives of Nigerians.

He said; “This borrowing binge is becoming reckless, opaque and dangerously habitual. The loans are coming with a burden of weight too heavy for Nigerians to bear. Nigerians were told these loans were for infrastructure, power, and economic recovery. Yet the average citizen still lives in darkness, roads remain death traps, businesses are collapsing under crushing energy costs, and hunger has become a national epidemic”.

The former Vice President also called on the World Bank and other creditors to apply more prudent measures in ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions attached to the loans, arguing that the administration’s borrowing trajectory was at odds with its own claims of improved revenue generation.

“The IDA loans are facilities granted to extremely poor countries and currently shares the same spot with Bangladesh and Pakistan as top countries in the world with highest loan exposure to the World Bank. This data is diametrically opposed to claims by the Tinubu administration that the government had increased its revenue generation drive,” he said.

Atiku also made a distinction between the current administration’s debt trajectory and the landmark Paris Club debt exit of 2005–2006, which he and former President Olusegun Obasanjo negotiated through what he described as fiscal discipline, diplomatic credibility and reform-driven leadership.

“It is deeply ironic that the same nation which painstakingly exited the Paris Club debt trap through the fiscal discipline, diplomatic credibility, and reform-driven leadership of the Obasanjo-Atiku administration in 2005–2006 is now being dragged back into a fresh era of debt dependency. That historic debt relief was not accidental. It was earned through tough negotiations, prudent management, and international goodwill. Today, that legacy is being squandered with alarming irresponsibility,” he said.

The former Vice President was unsparing in his verdict on the administration’s economic philosophy, insisting that borrowing was not governance and that debt was not development.

“This administration appears to believe that borrowing is governance. It is not. Loans are not achievements. Debt is not development. And mortgaging the future of unborn Nigerians to fund present incompetence is not economic management — it is economic vandalism,” Atiku declared.

He also criticised international lenders, urging them to exercise greater caution and demand transparency and measurable impact before extending further credit to an administration that had shown little evidence of efficient utilisation.

No responsible lender should ignore the warning signs. A government that keeps borrowing while citizens see no tangible improvement in electricity supply, healthcare, education, or infrastructure raises legitimate concerns about fiscal credibility and governance discipline. At some point, creditors must ask themselves whether they are funding development or enabling dysfunction,” he said.

Atiku called on the Federal Government to publish a full account of all loans secured since May 2023, including their terms, disbursement status and the specific project outcomes tied to each facility. (Vanguard)

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