•Says with N159.28trn current debt, every Nigerian owes N670,000

The Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, Dele Oye, has lamented the unprecedented rise in public debt under the current administration, noting that the N65.9 trillion borrowed by the Bola Tinubu administration in the last 24 months exceeds more than five times the total debt Nigeria incurred in the first 55 years of its independence.

Oye, who is the immediate past chairman of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN), noted that while successive governments accumulated debt over decades, the current administration alone has added N65.9 trillion in two years, compared to just N12 trillion accumulated over the first five and a half decades of Nigeria’s independence.

He revealed that with Nigeria’s total public debt of N159.28 trillion as of April 2026, according to the Debt Management Office, every Nigerian owes N670,000, decrying the speed at which the nation’s debt profile has expanded in recent years.

Oye cautioned that unless urgent measures are taken to strengthen revenue generation and fiscal discipline, the rising debt burden could place long-term pressure on public finances and constrain government spending on critical sectors.

He said, “Cast your mind back to 2006. Nigeria had just pulled off one of the most celebrated fiscal feats in African history. President Olusegun Obasanjo paid $12 billion to extinguish $30 billion in Paris Club debt. Nigeria was, briefly, externally debt-free. The Excess Crude Account was flush.

“The future looked fundable. Twenty years later, that golden moment reads like a fairy tale. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, debt crept back to N12.06 trillion by 2015 — manageable, but the warning signs were already blinking. Then came the Buhari years.

“In eight years, the debt exploded from N12.06 trillion to N87.38 trillion, a 620 percent increase. The Central Bank was pressed into printing money through ‘Ways and Means’ advances; N23.7 trillion of this was eventually securitised into long-term bonds, effectively converting a government overdraft into a generational liability.

“President Bola Tinubu’s administration has added a further N65.9 trillion in just two years. To put that in perspective: it took Nigeria’s first 55 years of independence to accumulate N12 trillion in debt. The current administration has added more than five times that amount in 24 months.” (Nigerian Tribune)

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