Emeka Moses
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the National Economic Council’s NEC approval of a $4.5 billion refinancing of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company NNPC Limited’s oil-backed loan, describing President Bola Tinubu as a weapon fashioned against Nigeria’s economy.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu on Wednesday in Abuja, the Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress ADC said the fresh borrowing was further proof that the administration had mortgaged the country’s future to sustain its fiscal habits.
Shaibu quoted Atiku as saying every new oil-backed obligation pushed Nigeria deeper into a cycle where tomorrow’s wealth is sacrificed to finance today’s policy failures.
Atiku recalled that only days earlier, the Presidency had responded to his revelation of an unexplained ₦17 trillion crude oil windfall by claiming Nigeria could not fully benefit from soaring international crude prices because future earnings had already been committed to oil-backed foreign loans.
“That explanation should have embarrassed any responsible government. Instead, this administration has chosen to double down on the very scandal it sought to justify by approving yet another $4.5 billion refinancing. Rather than breaking free from the chains of oil-backed indebtedness, it is tightening them,” he said.
The former Vice President questioned the logic behind the fresh borrowing given the administration’s revenue-boosting measures.
He accused the administration of turning Nigeria into a nation permanently living on credit, at the expense of future generations.
Atiku argued that the real tragedy lay in the hardship Nigerians had endured without corresponding gains, noting that while the pain is permanent, but the promised gains remain invisible.
He said Tinubu’s promise of renewed hope had instead delivered the opposite. “President Tinubu promised renewed hope. What Nigerians have received is renewed debt, renewed hardship and renewed uncertainty. Under his watch, debt has become policy, borrowing has become governance, and mortgaging the future has become the defining philosophy of his administration,” he said.
Atiku called on the administration to immediately publish full details of the refinancing arrangement, including its terms, repayment obligations and the volume of crude oil committed under the deal, insisting that Nigerians deserved transparency and a government that protects rather than mortgages the nation’s future.
“Nigeria deserves leadership that preserves national assets, not one that continually pledges them to finance an endless cycle of waste, opacity and fiscal irresponsibility”, he declared.
