Presidency rejects claims Tinubu borrowed ₦120tn in three years

News

By Linda Ikeji
8 November 2026, 10:09 pm

The Presidency has refuted viral social media claims alleging that President Bola Tinubu’s administration accrued ₦120 trillion in debt over its first three years in workplace, dismissing the figures as a distorted illustration of the nation’s public monetary information.

Dada Olusegun, the Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, addressed the claims in a press release on Sunday, explaining that comparisons between previous administrations and the present authorities fail to account for structural financial changes, foreign money unification, and beforehand hidden liabilities.

The controversy stemmed from a broadly circulated graphic claiming that 16 previous Nigerian leaders borrowed a cumulative ₦46 trillion over 63 years, in comparison with ₦120 trillion underneath Tinubu. Olusegun countered that the baseline ₦46 trillion determine from late 2022 omitted ₦22.7 trillion in Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) “Ways and Means” overdrafts, which weren’t formally built-in into official public debt information till May 2023.

Furthermore, Olusegun famous that earlier overseas debt valuations relied on an undervalued official change price of round ₦448 per greenback, masking the true naira worth of exterior liabilities.

“When the exchange rate was unified in June 2023, the exact same dollar debt instantly looked ₦13.4 trillion larger on paper overnight without a single new dollar being borrowed,” Olusegun acknowledged.

According to Debt Management Office information cited by the Presidency, Nigeria’s public debt shifted from $113.4 billion (approx. ₦87.38 trillion) in June 2023 to $120.93 billion (approx. ₦166.79 trillion) by June 2026 representing a web dollar-term improve of $7.5 billion, with the nominal naira rise pushed closely by exchange-rate changes and inherited central financial institution liabilities.

Defending the administration’s fiscal selections, the presidential aide argued that petrol subsidy elimination has considerably bolstered sub-national allocations, noting that month-to-month Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) distributions climbed from ₦656 billion in April 2023 to ₦2.4 trillion by September 2026.

The protection comes because the Federal Government faces renewed scrutiny from opposition events—together with the Nigeria Democratic Congress following President Tinubu’s latest request for Senate approval of a $7.7 billion exterior borrowing plan to finance the 2026 finances deficit, which changed a beforehand submitted request for $20.52 billion and €1.045 billion.