The Presidency has rejected a widely circulated claim that President Bola Tinubu borrowed ₦120 trillion in three years, arguing that the comparison overlooks previously unrecorded Central Bank advances and the effect of the naira’s depreciation on foreign-currency debt.
Dada Olusegun, Special Assistant to the President on Social Media, challenged the figures in a statement shared on Sunday, 8 November 2026. He disputed a graphic claiming that 16 previous Nigerian leaders borrowed a combined ₦46 trillion over 63 years, compared with ₦120 trillion attributed to Tinubu.
Olusegun said the earlier figure omitted ₦22.7 trillion in Ways and Means advances, borrowing by the Federal Government from the Central Bank of Nigeria that was subsequently securitised and formally reflected in public debt figures in 2023.
He also pointed to the exchange-rate changes that followed the unification of Nigeria’s foreign-exchange markets in June 2023. Foreign debts denominated in dollars become larger when expressed in naira after a depreciation, even when the outstanding dollar principal has not increased by the same proportion.
The latest published Debt Management Office figures put Nigeria’s combined federal and state public debt at ₦166.79 trillion at 30 June 2026, compared with ₦87.38 trillion at 30 June 2023. Those figures represent outstanding debt stocks at two dates, not the total value of new loans contracted during the intervening period.
The debt office’s June 2023 statement explicitly said that the ₦87.38 trillion stock included ₦22.712 trillion in securitised Ways and Means advances. That accounting change is important when assessing claims about which administration originally incurred an obligation and when it entered the reported debt stock.
In US dollar terms, the DMO recorded approximately $113.42 billion in June 2023 and $120.93 billion in June 2026. Olusegun cited that difference to challenge the viral comparison. Dollar-denominated comparisons, however, do not by themselves measure new borrowing, repayments or the changing domestic burden of servicing naira and foreign-currency obligations.
The June 2026 debt stock comprised ₦91.59 trillion in domestic debt and ₦75.20 trillion in external debt. Federal Government obligations accounted for approximately ₦152.77 trillion, while states and the Federal Capital Territory accounted for about ₦14.01 trillion, according to the DMO’s published breakdown.
The total had risen from ₦159.35 trillion at the end of March 2026, an increase of ₦7.44 trillion over three months. Compared with June 2025, when the DMO reported ₦152.40 trillion, the increase was ₦14.39 trillion.
The presidential aide also linked the administration’s fuel-subsidy removal to increased allocations shared through the Federation Account Allocation Committee. He said monthly distributable funds had risen from ₦656 billion in April 2023 to ₦2.4 trillion by September 2026. Those are figures presented in the Presidency’s defence, rather than a measure of how much each household or public service has benefited.
The intervention comes amid renewed scrutiny of federal borrowing proposals. Tinubu recently asked the Senate to approve a $7.7 billion external borrowing plan to help finance the 2026 budget deficit. Legislative consideration of a borrowing request is distinct from the disbursement of a loan or an increase already reflected in outstanding debt.
The Presidency’s response addresses the accuracy of a particular social-media comparison. The DMO’s debt-stock series confirms a substantial increase in the naira value of public debt since 2023, while also showing why changes in accounting treatment and exchange rates must be separated from the value of newly contracted loans.
