Loans not achievement, Atiku tells Tinubu

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the borrowing policy of President Bola Tinubu’s administration, warning that Nigeria risks sliding deeper into debt dependency despite promises of economic renewal.

Reacting to reports that the federal government is discussing another $1.25 billion loan facility with the World Bank, Atiku described the development as “troubling and unconscionable,” saying the administration has become associated with “industrial-scale borrowing without corresponding improvement in the lives of Nigerians.”

In a statement issued by his media aide, Olusola Sanni, on Sunday, Atiku, a presidential aspirant on the platform.of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the 2027 poll, said, “This borrowing binge is becoming reckless, opaque and dangerously habitual. Loans are not achievements. Debt is not development.”

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Tinubu has borrowed trillions of Naira since assumption of office in 2023, and is still borrowing.

Atiku said Nigerians were promised that the loans would revive infrastructure, power supply and economic growth, but citizens continue to battle poor electricity, collapsing businesses, bad roads and rising hunger.

Atiku argued that Nigeria’s growing exposure to International Development Association (IDA) loans contradicts claims by the government that revenue generation has improved.

He recalled that the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and himself successfully exited the Paris Club debt burden through “fiscal discipline and reform-driven leadership.”

Atiku  further accused the Tinubu administration of mortgaging the future of unborn Nigerians through excessive borrowing, insisting that “a nation cannot borrow its way out of incompetence.”

He urged the federal government to publish details of all loans secured since May 2023, including their terms, disbursement status and measurable outcomes.