Peter Obi, the presidential flagbearer of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, has lamented that Nigeria’s debt might likely be over N200 trillion by the end of 2025.
Obi poured out his lamentations about Nigeria’s rising debt on Tuesday morning via a post he shared on his official X account.
“On July 22, 2025, the Nigerian Senate approved an additional $21 billion, €2.2 billion, ¥15 billion of external borrowing for the 2025–2026 fiscal cycle. It also approved a N750.98 billion domestic bond issuance and a €65 65million grant,” Obi said.
“With an already existing public debt of about N149.39 trillion as at the first quarter of 2025, adding the approved loans of about N37.2 trillion) brings our current total debt to about N187 trillion with concerns that our debt might likely be over N200 trillion by the end of 2025.”
Obi said as Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) before rebasing was about N269.2 trillion (about $180 billion), the government has borrowed the equivalent of nearly 70% of the country’s previous GDP.
The LP chieftain stated that even after the rebasing, which pushed Nigeria’s GDP to about N372.8 trillion (about $243.7billion), the government would have borrowed about 50.16 % of the new GDP (with the approved loans), the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the nation’s history.
Obi explained that while the year-on-year increase is about N27.72 trillion and the quarter-on-quarter increase is about N4.72 trillion, Nigeria is accumulating very exponential levels of unsustainable debt with little or nothing to show for it in critical areas such as education, healthcare, electricity generation, security of lives and property, and pulling people out of poverty.
The former Governor of Anambra State lamented that the country still ranks low in all major human development indicators, explaining that while education is underfunded and standard in continuous decline, healthcare remains inaccessible to millions of Nigerians, particularly the poor.
“Security of lives and property has deteriorated with over 10,217 people killed and 672 villages sacked between May 29th 2023, and May 29th 2025, even when security spending has significantly increased from N2.98 trillion in 2023 to N4.91 trillion in 2025,” he said.
“Infrastructure decay persists across the country, with about 135,000km of our 195,000km of roads remaining unpaved, largely unmotorable, and unusable. It is the same depressing situation in almost all sectors of the economy, with the power sector an unquestionable example, with less than 5,000 MW supplied for over 200 million Nigerians.
“Today, over two years after the present government took over and with all the humongous borrowing, we are still confronted with negative reports of worsening poverty with about 133 million (63%) Nigerians classified as multi-dimensionally poor, increasing unemployment and disheartening news like 652 children dead as the malnutrition crisis worsens in Northern Nigeria.”
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, Obi said, has just sounded the alarm over an escalating malnutrition crisis in Northern Nigeria, with Katsina State emerging as one of the worst-hit areas.
He lamented that Nigeria is a country blessed with enormous resources, yet nobody should go to bed hungry, however, a persistent deficiency in leadership has thrown the majority of the citizens into increasing multi-dimensional poverty.
Obi stated that borrowing is not inherently bad if it is sustainable and tied to productive investments with measurable outcomes but unfortunately, this current pattern of borrowing without accountability, without transparency, and without transformational impact is simply mortgaging the future of the Nigerian children.
He called on the government to consider the inter-generational consequences of their unsustainable borrowings and show at least a minimum consideration and interest in future of young and unborn Nigerians.
Obi said Nigeria must return to a disciplined and prudent economic management culture, cutting the cost of governance, blocking leakages, investing in human capital, and building a productive economy.
According to him, Nigeria cannot continue to borrow recklessly while poverty deepens and public trust erodes, adding that it is time to stop this fiscal indiscipline.
“We must build a New Nigeria, where leadership is responsible, development is people-centred, and every kobo borrowed or spent delivers a measurable impact to achieve sustainable and inclusive development and growth. A new Nigeria is POssible,” Obi said.
