166.79 TRILLION NAIRA: THE BILL TINUBU IS PASSING TO YOUR CHILDREN
By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
In Part 3, we watched our brightest children leave while the palace feasted. Today we open the books on the feast. By the end of this page, you will know what your child already owes, and the name of the only candidate who has ever cut Nigeria’s debt instead of doubling it.
Some numbers whisper. This one screams.
THE LEDGER
30 June 2023: shortly after Bola Ahmed Tinubu took office, the Debt Management Office put Nigeria’s total public debt at 87.38 trillion naira.
31 December 2025: 159.28 trillion naira.
30 June 2026: 166.79 trillion naira.
In three years, the debt has nearly doubled. Between March and June of this year alone, it rose by 7.44 trillion naira, about 80 billion naira added to the nation’s debt every single day of that quarter.
And this is not a trick of the exchange rate. In dollar terms, the DMO’s own figures show total public debt rising from 99.66 billion dollars in June 2025 to 120.93 billion dollars in June 2026. More than 21 billion dollars of new obligation in twelve months.
They borrowed in your name. They spent in their own. And they will hand the bill to your children.
WHAT YOUR CHILD ALREADY OWES
Divide 166.79 trillion naira among the more than 200 million people of this country. Every Nigerian, from the oldest pensioner in Abeokuta to the baby born this morning in a hospital without light in Kano or Nnewi, now carries more than 700,000 naira of public debt. That is ten months of the national minimum wage of 70,000 naira. A child who cannot yet spell his own name has already had ten months of his future wages spent for him.
According to the DMO data, Nigeria owes the World Bank Group more than 20 trillion naira, carries about 18.6 trillion naira in Eurobonds and owes China more than 5 trillion naira. Because so much of it is owed in dollars, every fall of the naira makes the debt heavier without a single new loan being signed.
THE PROMISE AND THE CONFESSION
When subsidy went in 2023, Nigerians were told the savings would build roads, hospitals and schools. The government has claimed the removal freed 15.8 trillion naira between June 2023 and December 2025.
Then, in July 2026, came the confession. The Finance Minister, Taiwo Oyedele, admitted that the subsidy savings had been absorbed by debt servicing.
Sit with that. The money that took food from your table did not build the road. It paid interest on loans you never saw. You paid twice: first at the pump, then through the debt.
The civic group BudgIT has warned that debt service now consumes between 67 and 84 per cent of government revenue by its estimates. And still the borrowing goes on. The 2026 budget carried a deficit of 31.45 trillion naira, about 6.4 per cent of GDP, more than twice the 3 per cent ceiling in Nigeria’s own Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Under Tinubu, the lender eats first and the Nigerian eats last.
WHO BORROWED? WHO ENJOYED? WHO PAYS?
Who borrowed it? They did. Who enjoyed it? They did: the jets, the convoys, the delegations, the tokens. Who will pay for it? The child in primary school today, the graduate who has not found work, and the baby on the back of the woman in the Adamawa market.
A loan that builds a railway pays for itself. A government that borrows to consume, and charges the consumption to children who cannot yet vote, has committed a theft across generations.
THE ONLY MAN WHO HAS BROUGHT THE DEBT DOWN
Now look at the other road, because Nigeria has walked it before, and the man who walked it is on the ballot.
Between 1999 and 2007, the government in which Atiku Abubakar served as Vice President negotiated the Paris Club settlement of 2005, under which about 18 billion dollars of Nigeria’s external debt was written off. In 2006 Nigeria walked out of the Paris Club altogether. In the same years, foreign reserves rose from about 3.7 billion dollars to about 45 billion dollars, and the economy grew from 58 billion dollars to 270 billion dollars.
Tinubu nearly doubled the debt in three years. Atiku sat at the table when Nigeria cleared it. There is no other candidate on this ballot who can say that.
For 2027, his committed plans attack the debt at its source.
He has committed to fiscal discipline and stable macroeconomic management, so that Nigeria stops borrowing to pay for consumption.
He has committed to implementing the Oronsaye Report and building a smart, compact, lean federal government, cutting the duplication and overlapping agencies that eat the budget before a single classroom is built.
He has committed to growth led by the private sector and anchored on job creation, restoring Nigeria as a destination for serious investment, so that the economy is financed by investors who bring capital rather than lenders who demand interest.
And he has committed that the trillions said to have been saved from subsidy since 2023 will be traced, naira by naira, so that Nigerians finally learn where their sacrifice went.
One man borrows the future to pay for the present. The other has already given Nigeria its future back once.
THE DIFFERENCE IN ONE PICTURE
In 2006, Nigerians read in their newspapers that their country had walked out of the Paris Club and was no longer a debtor nation in chains. It was one of the proudest headlines of the Fourth Republic.
In 2026, Nigerians read in their newspapers that 7.44 trillion naira was added to the national debt in three months, and that the Finance Minister had admitted the subsidy savings were swallowed by debt servicing.
Same country. Same people. Same oil. The only difference was the leadership. One headline was written by a government in which Atiku chaired the National Economic Council. The other was written by Emilokan.
You do not need an economist to tell you which headline you want in 2028.
YOU HOLD THE CHEQUEBOOK
Ask yourself one question before you vote. If your own household had borrowed this much in three years, and the money had gone to the convoy, the jet and the tokens while the children went hungry, would you hand the same person the chequebook again? Nigeria is your household. The children are yours.
On 16 January 2027, Nigerians decide who keeps the chequebook. Collect your card. Tell your family what every child now owes. And vote for the only man on the ballot who has ever made the debt go down.
Coming next, Part 5 of 10: A NATION AT WAR WITHOUT A DECLARATION. Some Nigerians will not live to pay this debt. Part 5 counts the dead the government would rather you forgot, and reveals the security plan that sets a one-year clock on the bandits.
#Awalokan #Atiku2027 #TheNarrativeForce
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General, The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
12 October 2026
