Nigeria’s Senate is under renewed scrutiny after President Bola Tinubu formally requested a fresh external loan of $7.707 billion on 4 November 2026, a move that would add to a public‑debt stock of N166.79 trillion (about $120.93 billion) and push debt‑service costs to roughly 65 percent of government revenue.
According to the Debt Management Office, the debt total comprises N91.59 trillion in domestic obligations and N75.20 trillion in external borrowing. The federal government accounts for N152.77 trillion of the total, while states and the Federal Capital Territory owe the remaining N14.01 trillion. Compared with June 2023, when the debt stood at N87.38 trillion, the stock has risen by N79.41 trillion – an increase of about 90.9 percent, driven by new borrowing, existing obligations and the impact of naira depreciation.
The new $7.707 billion request is earmarked to finance part of the N10.79 trillion external‑borrowing provision in the 2026 Appropriation Act. It replaces an earlier, larger proposal for $20.52 billion and €1.045 billion submitted under the 2026‑2027 Supplementary External Borrowing Plan. Senate President Godswill Akpabio read Tinubu’s letter in plenary and referred the revised request to the Senate Committees on Local and Foreign Debts and Appropriations for further consideration.
Legally, external loans require presentation of their terms to the National Assembly under Section 21(1) of the Debt Management Office (Establishment, Etc.) Act 2003, with standard terms and guarantees needing legislative approval under Section 27. Critics point to the speed of past approvals – for example, on 31 March 2026 the Assembly cleared roughly $6 billion of external financing on the same day the applications were lodged. Other notable authorisations include $7.8 billion and €100 million in December 2023, $2.209 billion in November 2024, a $21.5 billion programme in July 2025, $2.347 billion in October 2025, and a $516.3 million facility for the Sokoto–Badagry Superhighway in May 2026. Analysts note that many of these figures represent multiyear programmes, refinancing or securitisation rather than pure additions to the debt stock.
“The truth is that we have approved so much funds to be borrowed in the past, and on each occasion we’ve been told that this borrowing would be able to fund the budgets and these budgets have remained unfunded up till this day,” Senator Victor Umeh said on Channels Television’s *Politics Today* on 27 October 2026.
Senator Umeh, together with former Vice‑President Atiku Abubakar, warned that successive loan approvals have failed to settle outstanding budgetary obligations or pay contractors, noting that “three budgets are running concurrently and the government…”. President Tinubu, however, maintained that despite debt servicing consuming 65 percent of revenue, the overall debt burden remains “manageable”,
<small>Source: The Sun Nigeria — read the original story there.</small>
