The Presidency on Tuesday reassured Nigerians that the country’s international debt burden is not rising but has in fact declined.
Dr Tope Fasua, Special Assistant to the President on Economy, told Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Tuesday that Nigeria’s debt has eased by 39 per cent since the Tinubu administration assumed office in 2023.
“At 39 per cent of GDP, Nigeria is actually under-borrowing,” Fasua said. He explained that debt servicing costs had fallen by 64 per cent, compared with a period in 2022 when the government spent 120 per cent of its revenues on repayments.
Fasua added that states had paid down 42 per cent of their debts between 2023 and 2024. He argued that borrowing remained necessary to close Nigeria’s vast infrastructure gap, which he estimated at $3 trillion annually.
He maintained that investment in roads, maintenance, and other infrastructure projects was central to tackling multidimensional poverty. “Infrastructure is the only way to reduce poverty beyond income,” he said, claiming that around 120 million people had already been lifted from such poverty.
According to the Debt Management Office, Nigeria’s external debt stood at $45.97 billion in Q1 2025 — a 26.07 per cent year-on-year rise, attributed to new loans and the depreciation of the naira.
Fasua also highlighted economic improvements, noting that inflation fell to 20.12 per cent in August 2025 from 21.88 per cent in July. He predicted that the rate would drop to single digits, citing stabilised exchange rates, rising crude oil prices, and lower food costs.
Responding to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s remarks that Nigerians were “dying of hunger,” Fasua dismissed them as political, insisting that prices were beginning to ease.