In the twilight of his administration, former President Muhammadu Buhari hastily sought and got the National Assembly’s approval to convert a N22.7 trillion ($49 billion at the time) borrowing from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) into bonds.
Borrowing a sum that huge from the bank violated the law that limits the advance the Nigerian government could take from the CBN to five per cent of its previous year’s revenue and requires the cash to be repaid within the same year.
The move raised Nigeria’s debt by half to N69 trillion as of that time. The Debt Management Office put Nigeria’s debt service-to-revenue ratio at 73.5 per cent in June 2023 less than a month after Mr Buhari’s successor Bola Tinubu took office. It suggests the latter had limited elbow room to borrow to fund the spending ambitions of his government.
