President Bola Tinubu has written to the National Assembly requesting approval for loans totaling N40.5 trillion ($28.93billion USD) for 2025-2026. The borrowing plan is a multi-currency facility which amounts to:
-USD $21.5 billion
-EUR €2.2 billion
-JAP ¥15BN
-EUR €65 million in grants
N40.5 trillion at 1,400/$1 = $28.93billion USD
This comes after he signed the N54.99 trillion 2025 Appropriation Bill into law to become the 2025 National budget, which kept increasing as follows:
—Initial proposal: ₦49.7 trillion (Appropriation bill by Tinubu)
—Increase by Tinubu: ₦4.5 trillion
—Revised proposal: ₦54.2 trillion (by Tinubu)
—Increase by National Assembly: ₦750 billion
—Final Approved Budget: ₦54.99 trillion
But it goes further! All this follows a set of six major World Bank loans requested by the Tinubu government which was approved for Nigeria in 2024, totaling $4.25 billion:
1) June 2024: $2.25 billion
—Nigeria Reforms for Economic Stabilization to Enable Transformation (RESET) Development Policy Financing – $1.5 billion;
—Accelerating Resource Mobilization Reforms (ARMOR) Program-for-Results – $750 million.
2) September 2024: $1.57 billion
—Primary Healthcare Provision Strengthening Program (HOPE-PHC) – $500 million;
—HOPE Governance Project (HOPE-GOV) – $500 million
—Sustainable Power and Irrigation for Nigeria Project (SPIN) – $500 million
3) December 2024: $500 million
—Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project – Scale Up (RAAMP-SU)
So the Tinubu Administration is requesting a loan total almost three-quarters of the 2025 national budget (N40.5 trillion/N54.99trillion = 0.737; 73.7%)? And almost seven times the World Bank loans given in 2024 ($28.93b/$4.25b= 6.81).
My collection of two of every animal is almost complete!
Questions:
—Has any regular Nigerian felt the benefits of all these loan monies besides soaring prices and decreasing supplies?
—Do you think Nigerian politicians will use this money to “serve and uplift” or “pack and eat”?
—Is this governance or stockpiling for the 2027 elections?
—Details matter, for example Tinubu getting ₦10 billion ($6.25m) for solar power at his Presidential Villa. Why not invest money to provide power for the people to ease their affliction?
—Why is the Nigerian government so wasteful and greedy?
Maybe Nigerians should lobby the Trump Administration to defund the World Bank just like USAID. To then force the Nigerian government and other African countries to live within their means… or internally collapse. With the tap of milk and honey dwindling, it would then make it easier for true leaders and revolutionaries to take full possession of government and start building a brighter future.
Nigeria has become a jungleocracy with an ineffective National Assembly (few exceptions) that is practically useless. It is a government ran mostly by marauders. People whose idea of public service is to make the public their servants and for public money to be at their service.
A lavish feast is being organized and Nigerian citizens are not invited. The younger generation must brace up to eventually pay back all these loans. Potentially even at the cost of building their own futures. What a high price to pay for allowing vandals today to rob your tomorrow.
What will it take to move Nigeria forward? The answer to this question and what is burning in the spirit cannot be discussed on LinkedIn and WhatsApp. But only in an underground bunker you need a secret password to enter conveyed only by a messenger pigeon. In a dimly lit room encircled by candles with incense burning in the background. And from a dark corner a group of hooded monks chanting cryptic Gregorian hymns just to elevate the spook. Hatching clandestine plans at the beginning of whose execution heavenly trumpets starts blowing from the Eastern cosmos. For Nigeria needs miracles, magic, and exorcisms to progress.
Dramatic yes. Point is a reckoning is coming, because something has to give. And it will. For clearly these people in office are not serious about nation-building.
~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah
References:
—People’s Gazette https://gazettengr.com/tinubu-seeks-another-n40-trillion-foreign-loans-as-nigerias-revenue-crashes-amidst-investors-exodus/
—Nairametrics https://nairametrics.com/2025/04/11/nigerias-debt-to-world-bank-surges-by-2-36-billion-in-2024-after-approval-of-six-loans/
—Channels TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1emxYhQmRI
—Budgit: https://budgit.org/post_infographics/2025-fg-approved-budget/
Nation Upbuilding 