As Nigerians grapple with rising costs and shrinking infrastructure, the Federal Government (FG) and the Senate are telling two different stories. While the Finance Ministry says the N80 trillion debt figure is a mirage created by accounting, Senators say the real problem is money approved but not spent. The clash lays bare a deeper crisis of trust, transparency and delivery in public finance, observed Ekuson Nw’Ogbunka Our Managing Editor.
The setting was the Senate Committee on Finance on Monday. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, walked in with one message: the debt numbers are wrong. He declared flatly that the Tinubu administration has not borrowed “anywhere near” the N80 trillion figures circulating in the media.
The trigger was a question from Senator Adamu Aliero, who asked how the government could have added N80 trillion to the N75 trillion inherited.
Oyedele’s explanation rested on three pillars: revaluation, securitization, and refinancing.
First, the naira depreciation. Because Nigeria reports debt in naira, the foreign component ballooned after reforms.
“That accounting adjustment alone added more than ₦40 trillion,” he said.
Second, the Ways and Means securitization. About N33 trillion of old Central Bank advances were moved onto the official books with NASS approval.
“It was not new borrowing,” Oyedele insisted.
Third, domestic borrowing. Much of it, he argued, is simply rolling over maturing debt, not new accumulation.
On policy, the Minister struck a reassuring tone: “We see debt as leverage. Every naira and every dollar borrowed should generate more value.”
He stressed that borrowing under Tinubu has been “very responsible” and targeted only at infrastructure, not consumption.
But the Senators were not buying the optics.
Senate Whip Tahir Monguno and Aliero shifted the focus from debt arithmetic to budget performance.
Their concern: the capital component of the 2026 budget has not been implemented.
Monguno went further, describing it as an “impeachable offence” a direct constitutional challenge to the executive.
It was a moment of tension that forced Committee Chairman Sani Musa to step in.
Musa offered a buffer, assuring colleagues that implementation would soon be visible “to all and sundry.” He also hinted at reforms: a shift from “envelope budgeting” to “performance and priority based budgeting,” and a return to direct contractor payments.
The exchange reveals the core contradiction in Nigeria’s fiscal conversation. While the government wants credit for fiscal discipline and technical explanations, the legislature wants evidence in roads, hospitals and projects that citizens can see.
Oyedele is right that debt figures can be distorted by FX revaluation and accounting moves. The N40 trillion and N33 trillion additions are real technicalities.
But technical correctness does not equal public confidence. When capital budgets are not executed, explanations about securitization sound like excuses to a public waiting for boreholes and bridges.
The Senators’ frustration reflects that gap between macro data and micro delivery. At the end of the closed-door session, both sides agreed to “make budget management flow with revenue.”
That is bureaucratic language for: spend what we have, and spend it where it matters. Until that happens, the debate will remain stuck, the FG explaining why the debt is smaller than it looks, and the Senate asking why the budget is smaller than it should be.
In the end, Nigerians will judge not by spreadsheets, but by what gets built.
