National Assembly is rubberstamping Nigeria’s future

When President Bola Tinubu’s latest request for a $516.3 million external loan landed on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, it followed a now-familiar script.

A formal letter, a referral to committee, a promise of swift review and, if recent history is anything to go by, an eventual approval with minimal resistance.

The loan, earmarked for Sections 1, 1A and 1B of the ambitious Sokoto–Badagry Superhighway, is being framed as a strategic investment under the administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

On paper, the arguments are compelling: a 1,000-kilometre economic corridor linking the northwest to the southwest, cutting travel time, boosting trade, and strengthening national integration.

Yet beneath the optimism lies a deeper concern, one that continues to trail the National Assembly, particularly in its current 10th iteration: is the legislature still performing its constitutional duty of scrutiny, or has it settled into the role of a compliant approver of executive borrowing?

The speed with which such requests are processed raises eyebrows.

In this case, Senate President Godswill Akpabio referred the request to the Committee on Local and Foreign Debts with a directive to report back within one week.

A week for a loan running into hundreds of millions of dollars, with long-term implications for a country already grappling with a heavy debt burden.

This is not an isolated case. Since its inauguration in June 2023, the 10th National Assembly has approved a string of borrowing requests with similar urgency.

From multibillion-dollar external loans embedded in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to domestic borrowing instruments aimed at plugging fiscal gaps, the pattern has been consistent: requests come in, committees review them quickly, and approvals follow.

Barely two months ago, he latest proposal, an additional N9 trillion to the 2026 budget has once again thrown this pattern into sharp relief, raising urgent questions about accountability, oversight, and the long-term consequences for Africa’s largest economy.

At the heart of this concern is not merely the size of the borrowing, but the seeming absence of interrogation. The National Assembly, constitutionally empowered to check executive excesses, appears to have settled into a routine of compliance rather than scrutiny.

Each new request is treated as an inevitability rather than a proposal to be rigorously debated, dissected, and justified.

Recent legislative activity underscores this concern.

On March 31, the Senate approved a request by President Bola Tinubu to establish a $5 billion structured Total Return Swap (TRS) external financing programme with First Abu Dhabi Bank.

According to the report of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, the facility is a derivative-based instrument governed by International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) rules, designed to provide foreign currency liquidity in tranches over a six-year tenor.

The Committee highlighted several features of the arrangement: the facility is to be collateralised at 133.3 percent with naira-denominated Federal Government securities; it carries pricing benchmarks of SOFR +3.95 percent for the first tranche and slightly higher margins for subsequent tranches; and it includes provisions for monthly mark-to-market valuation, with margin calls in dollars where necessary.

The stated objectives are familiar; budget implementation, infrastructure financing, refinancing of expensive debt, and addressing fiscal shortfalls. Notably, about 40 percent of the proceeds are earmarked for capital projects within the 2025 and 2026 budgets.

The Committee, in its conclusion, described the facility as “an innovative and strategic approach” that offers flexibility, competitive pricing, and support for fiscal stability.

It recommended approval, alongside provisions for quarterly reporting by the Ministry of Finance and the Debt Management Office (DMO).

On the same day. the Senate also approved another external loan. a $1 billion facility backed by UK Export Finance (UKEF) for the rehabilitation of the Lagos Port Complex (Apapa) and Tin Can Island Port. Structured under an Engineering, Procurement, Construction plus Finance (EPC+F) model and arranged by Citibank London, the loan carries a tenor of up to 14 years and is intended to overhaul Nigeria’s aging port infrastructure.

Earlier legislative cycles offer even more instructive parallels. During the 9th National Assembly, lawmakers approved several external borrowing plans under former President Muhammadu Buhari, often with limited public debate.

Perhaps, the most controversial was the approval of the Central Bank’s Ways and Means advances ₦22.7 trillion, extended to the federal government to cover budget deficits.

At the time, lawmakers justified the approvals as necessary to keep the economy afloat amid dwindling revenues and economic shocks.

But years later, the lawmakers keep complaining that the same debts have become a source of fiscal strain, contributing to Nigeria’s rising debt servicing costs and shrinking fiscal space.

Today, history appears to be repeating itself.

The Tinubu administration has defended its borrowing strategy as targeted and growth-oriented.

The Sokoto–Badagry Superhighway, for instance, is projected to unlock economic potential across multiple regions, facilitate the movement of goods, and connect agricultural hubs to ports.

Senator Adamu Aliero described it as “a landmark project that has been on the drawing board for over five decades,” adding that it would reduce travel time from 13 hours to about six.

There is little doubt that Nigeria needs infrastructure.

Roads, rail, power, and ports remain critical bottlenecks to economic growth. But infrastructure financing, especially through external borrowing demands rigorous legislative oversight.

Each loan carries not just financial costs, but policy implications that can shape the country’s economic trajectory for decades.

That is precisely where concerns about the National Assembly’s role come into sharper focus.

In theory, the legislature is expected to act as a check on executive excesses, interrogating loan terms, assessing project viability, and ensuring alignment with national priorities.

Sections 16 and 21 of the Debt Management Office Act, which the President cited in his request, require legislative approval as a safeguard, not a formality.

In practice, however, the process often appears perfunctory.

Public hearings on borrowing requests are rare. Detailed breakdowns of loan utilisation, repayment plans, and risk assessments are seldom subjected to robust debate on the floor.

Instead, approvals are frequently justified on broad economic grounds; job creation, infrastructure development, and national growth without sufficient interrogation of the underlying assumptions.

Even when lawmakers raise concerns, they are often overshadowed by the dominant narrative of urgency. Nigeria needs roads. Nigeria needs power. Nigeria needs investment.

All true, but at what cost, and under what terms?

The consequences of insufficient scrutiny are already visible. Nigeria’s public debt has climbed steadily over the years, with debt servicing consuming a significant portion of government revenue.

In some fiscal cycles, the country has spent more on servicing debt than on capital expenditure, a paradox for a nation borrowing to fund development.

For a legislature that has, in the past, lamented executive fiscal recklessness, the pattern is striking.

The same National Assembly that now warns about debt sustainability was instrumental in approving many of the loans that contributed to the current situation.

This contradiction underscores a deeper institutional challenge: the tendency to prioritise short-term political alignment over long-term economic accountability.

To be clear, not all borrowing is bad. As Akpabio rightly noted, borrowing for critical infrastructure can be justified if it generates economic returns that exceed its costs. The key lies in ensuring that such borrowing is strategic, transparent, and sustainable.

That requires more than expedited committee reports.

It demands a shift in legislative culture, one that places greater emphasis on due diligence, stakeholder engagement, and evidence-based decision-making.

Lawmakers must ask harder questions: Are the projected benefits realistic? What are the risks if revenues fall short? How will the loans be repaid without crowding out essential services?

It also requires greater transparency. Citizens have a right to know the terms of the loans being contracted in their name, the projects they are funding, and the mechanisms in place to ensure accountability.

As the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts prepares to review the Sokoto–Badagry loan request, it faces an opportunity to redefine the narrative.

Instead of another routine approval, it could set a new standard for legislative oversight, one that balances the need for development with the imperative of fiscal responsibility.

Whether it will seize that opportunity remains to be seen.

For now, the perception persists that the National Assembly is more inclined to rubberstamp than to rigorously scrutinise.

And as Nigeria continues to borrow its way into the future, the question is not just how much debt the country can sustain, but whether its lawmakers are doing enough to ensure that every kobo borrowed truly serves the national interest.

If history is any guide, the cost of getting that balance wrong will not be borne by the present administration alone.

It will be passed on quietly, steadily, to future generations.