Mr Peter Obi, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), has expressed concerns over what he described as “excessive and imprudent borrowing” by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu after the country’s debt has exceeded N100 trillion to N200 trillion within three years, news.ng reports.
Obi, in a post on X Wednesday morning, questioned how the Tinubu administration can claim that there is an “increase in revenue from N16.8 trillion in 2022 to N35 trillion in 2025” and yet the country is still trapped in debt.
According to the former governor of Anambra State, while the country has exceeded budget revenue targets as a result of geopolitical tensions, key economic indices appear abysmally poor, coupled with the latest poverty figure, as over 140 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor as opposed to the 87 million people that were poor in 2023.
He said, “In celebrating three years of his administration, President Bola Tinubu included, among his achievements, an increase in revenue from N16.8 trillion in 2022 to N35 trillion in 2025. An increase of over 100%.
“Shockingly, while Nigerians expected a reduction in borrowing with the exponential increase in revenue, the opposite is the case. In just three years, President Bola Tinubu’s government seems to be obsessed with excessive and imprudent borrowing, with our total debt currently about N200 trillion—a deeply disturbing increase of over N100 trillion.
“In addition to the exponential increases in both revenue and debt, it is also important to note that Nigeria has earned far more than the budget revenue targets due to global and regional geoeconomic and political tensions.
“Alarmingly, even with the astronomical increase in both revenue and debt, almost all key socio-economic and governance indicators are worse than in 2023. Multi-dimensional poverty has increased from 87 million people in 2023 to over 140 million people in 2025.”
Amid the untold hardship on Nigerians, the presidential candidate called on the government to provide a detailed explanation of the whereabouts of the borrowings and the country’s resources since the inception of the Tinubu administration.
“Rapidly increasing unemployment and a decline in GDP per capita from $1,597 in 2023 to $1,223 in 2025, and the list goes on.
“Just more and more hardship for Nigerians! The question Nigerians and even the international community are asking is, “Where did all the money go?”
“Nigerians deserve a detailed and transparent explanation of what happened to our economy and financial resources since 2023, and a stop to the imprudent, unaccountable, and opaque management of our common patrimony,” he stated.
