The Presidency has refuted reports that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is seeking to borrow $20 billion in a single move, clarifying that recent correspondence to the National Assembly has been widely misinterpreted.
The clarification was made by the Special Assistant on Social Media to the president, Dada Olusegun, in a statement posted on his verified X handle.
“No, the President is not requesting to borrow $20bn, at least not like it has been made to sound,” Olusegun wrote.
He explained that the President’s communication was part of the 2025–2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), which outlines projected borrowing needs across both federal and state governments over a two-year period.
“It is important to, very quickly, clear the misconception about the 2025–2026 MTEF funding, which some people have now tagged as the president borrowing a $20bn lump sum,” he added.
Olusegun further clarified that the plan consolidates proposed foreign borrowings into a single framework to streamline the legislative process and avoid repeated Senate approvals.
“It reeks of an absolute lack of plan to keep going back to the Senate every month to get approval for external borrowings. As such, all planned borrowings—covering all 36 states and the FG—over the next two years, have been presented as one to the National Assembly,” he stated.
He stressed that states require federal guarantees to access international funds and that the National Assembly’s approval does not equate to immediate or full utilization of the proposed amounts.
“States cannot access international funding without the Federal Government as a guarantor, and as such, the Senate must approve all forms of external borrowing through the FG,” Olusegun said.
He added that the Federal Government intends to raise $2 billion from the domestic market specifically for infrastructure development.
“This is the first of its kind among several other initiatives to bridge the infrastructural gap in the country,” he noted.
The presidential aide added that “loans in themselves are not bad instruments of financing public services. What Nigerians must focus on is how such loans are being utilised by the government. These are the questions that should be asked.”
