President Bola Tinubu says Nigeria will spend $11.6 billion on debt servicing in 2026.
According to a statement by Bayo Oyenuga, special adviser to
the president on information and strategy, Tinubu spoke at the Africa Forward
Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday.
Tinubu said nearly half of Nigeria’s projected revenue for
2026 would go into servicing debt under the current global financial system.
According to Tinubu, every dollar spent on debt repayment is
reducing investment in critical sectors of the economy.
“Every single dollar that leaves our treasury to pay
punitive interest rates is a dollar that did not go into our steel sector, our
textile mills, our agro-processed, or our digital industries,” the president
said.
“It is a dollar that did not train a young Nigerian engineer
or provide affordable power for our factories.”
Tinubu said African countries are being treated as permanent
high-risk borrowers despite reforms and fiscal adjustments implemented by many
governments across the continent.
“Our industrial base is being starved of the blood it needs
– long-term, affordable finance – while creditors and rating agencies treat
African sovereigns as permanent high-risk borrowers, regardless of our fiscal
performance,” Tinubu said.
The president added that the current international financial
architecture is undermining Africa’s industrialisation drive by making access
to affordable capital difficult.
“How can an African manufacturer compete with a competitor
in Europe, Asia, or North America when the cost of borrowing in our nations is
five to ten times higher?” Tinubu said.
“How can we build cross-border industrial value chains under
the African Continental Free Trade Area when our infrastructure projects face a
financing gap deepened by the very institutions meant to bridge it?.
“The answer is plain – we cannot. The international
financial architecture, as currently constituted, is an instrument of
industrial disarmament for Africa.”
Also, Tinubu said Nigeria had undertaken “painful, homegrown
decisions” to stabilise the economy, including the removal of petrol subsidies,
exchanges rate unification, banking recapitalisation, and exiting the Financial
Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.
“These reforms were sovereign choices, not external
conditions. They have delivered a declining debt-to-GDP ratio, now projected at
32.3 percent in 2026, stronger external reserves of $45.5 billion, and a return
of investor confidence,” he added.
According to the president, Nigeria needs a financial system that supports industrialisation across Africa rather than one that keeps countries dependent on commodity exports.
The president said Nigeria is not asking for charity, but a
financial system that intentionally enables Africa to industrialise, to process
its own minerals, refine its own crude oil, manufacture its own
pharmaceuticals, and compete fairly in a global market.
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