By Adekunle Adekoya
On October 1, the President made a broadcast to the nation about the state of the Nigerian state. In summary, the president said that “reforms are over, foundation laid for prosperity.” The president’s assertions have never been interrogated, except for sporadic attacks from leading opposition figures about specific items.
*Tinubu
I want to ask: What was reformed? As far as I can see, what has been drummed into the ears of Nigerians, and which some multilateral institutions have bought into is the removal of subsidy on fuel energy, namely diesel, petrol, and Jet-A1, and flotation of the Naira. The argument advanced for subsidy removal was that government would conserve resources, increase revenue and have more funds to run the country.
I think, in restrospect, these are not reforms, just a deliberate action by the faction of the power elite in government to throw the masses of Nigeria under a moving train that crushed them on its rails of cost of living crisis, mass impoverishment, and an uncertain future. The future is made even more uncertain by the fact that the present administration has completed only one budget since it assumed office.
That budget was not its own, it was the one inherited from the outgone Buhari administration — Budget 2023. The capital component of Budget 2024 is yet to be fully implemented, and was rolled over into the 2025 appropriation. That too was not completed, and as usual rolled into Budget 2026, whose implementation started just recently. So, the capital components of Budgets 2024, 2025 and 2026 will be rolled over into Budget 2027.
Here is what many Nigerians do not know: it is the unimplemented capital budgets that will affect their life and living in the immediate, medium, and long terms. Projects that are supposed to have been implemented, to bring succour to the people have been left unimplemented, and most Nigerians are living just for today, which is why it is only the recurrent components of these budgets that have been implemented — salaries are being paid, official cars are running, estacodes are being drawn, etc, etc. That gives the impression that all is well. But they are not!
What baffles me is the pleading of inadequate funds, especially juxtaposed with the quantum of loans taken by this administration.
Let’s take some samplers: On the 9th of June, 2023, government took a loan of $750 million from the World Bank., followed on the 22nd of June, 2023 by another $500 million from the same World Bank.
Between July and December 2023,government raised about N3.66 trillion in domestic borrowings. That was followed, in the first quarter of 2024, by another N2.81 trillion raised in fresh domestic borrowing.
By June 2024, government was back at the World Bank with a begging bowl, and obtained another $2.25 billion. The following month, July 2024, the African Development Bank approved a $500 million loan for Nigeria. This was followed, in September 2024, by a $500 million raised through the Domestic FGN US Dollar Bond. Same September, the World Bank approved another $1.57 billion loan. As the year ended, $2.2 billion was borrowed through Eurobonds on December 2, while the World Bank followed that with another $500 million loan on December 13.
2025 saw the Federal Government, on March 31, getting the world Bank’s approval for another $1.08 billion loan, which was topped on August 7 with another $300 million approval for the SOLID project. In October 2025, the World Bank approved another $750 million loan, while government, on November 5 , raised $2.35 billion through Eurobonds.
This year, on March 30, the World Bank approved another $500 million loan, followed by a $200 million facility for the digital infrastructure project from the African Development Bank, AfDB.
The list is endless, and only God knows which loans are being negotiated from where at this moment.
As of December 2025, total public debt owed by government stood at N159.28 trillion, according to the Debt Management Office. That figure, I surmise, may not include loans taken by the state governments. Some of them are accumulating debt in competition with the Federal Government. And you wonder why the exchange rate is what it is?
You can’t owe that much and still have a strong currency, with the main source of your income denominated in the currency that you are also owing in. And it is this same Nigeria that Obasanjo and Dr. Ngozi Oknonjo-Iweala struggled to get out of the debt trap! Late economist, Dr. Pius Okigbo, in a public lecture before he died, remarked that the debt trap is like a cemetery which only takes, but never gives.
There is a Yoruba proverb, which, freely translated reads: “If you’re being deceived, do not deceive yourself.” If the president is telling us about coming prosperity, we will believe him when we see it, and live it, when every family man stops treating hypertension over how to make ends meet at home.
Unless famed magicians — Harry Houdini and Professor Peller take charge of the economy, there is no silver lining on the economic horizon, a little over 100 days to the next election. With unimplemented budgets and a deepening debt trap, it is deliberate disinformation and living in denial to tell people that prosperity is on the way. Or there are different markets for and petrol stations for members of the ruling party and their people in government?
*Adekoya is a commentator on public issues
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