Nigeria’s minister of finance, Taiwo Oyedele, has explained why it did not put into consideration the advice of the International Monetary Fund on the $5 billion First Abu Dhabi Bank loan.
Speaking after the Federal Executive Council meeting on
Monday, Oyedele confirmed Nigeria’s drawdown of $1.5 billion.
According to him, the federal government gets the loan in
tranches to save borrowing cost.
“The approval for that loan went to the National Assembly,
so everybody is aware of it.
“It’s for the refinancing of expensive debts and financing
of infrastructure, as well as budgets. So, we don’t want to start making press
releases each time we do a drawdown. It is not different from any other loan,”
he said.
“So, the loan is meant to be a drawdown in tranches, and one
of the advantages of that is, if you need $5 billion and you take everything at
once, you start paying interest, even though you’re not spending all of it now.
“So, this has been structured in a way that makes us even
more efficient in the cost of borrowing by taking what we need part-time,” he
said.
Recall that the IMF had warned the Nigerian government
against the First Abu Dhabi Bank $5 billion loan.
The additional loan had further
drawn concerns from financial experts.
However, Oyedele noted that critics of the country’s
debt, which stood at N159.28 trillion as of December 2025, are doing a
disservice to the nation.
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