<\/p>\n
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, has clarified his position on Nigeria\u2019s debt profile, insisting he never condemned government borrowing.
Abbas had criticised the country\u2019s reliance on loans during his remarks at the 11th Annual Conference and General Assembly of the West Africa Association of Public Accounts Committees (WAAPAC).
While the Speaker had expressed concern that Nigeria\u2019s total public debt had reached N149.39 trillion, equivalent to about $97 billion, as of the first quarter of 2025, he said his comments were misrepresented.
In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on New Media, Jowosimi Enitan, Abbas maintained that he supports borrowing when it is responsibly managed and effectively overseen.
\u201cFor the record, Speaker Abbas Tajudeen, PhD, GCON, never condemned borrowing,\u201d Enitan said. \u201cPublic debt, if managed prudently, can be a tool for growth and prosperity. The legislature\u2019s role is to ensure that every naira borrowed delivers tangible value to Nigerians.\u201d
The statement further noted that President Bola Tinubu\u2019s administration is already making efforts to reduce reliance on borrowing through a stronger non-oil revenue drive, pointing to Nigeria meeting its 2025 revenue target ahead of schedule as proof of progress.
According to Enitan, Abbas\u2019s call was not against borrowing itself but for greater transparency, accountability, and oversight to ensure that loans translate into meaningful development such as infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and innovation.
\u201cLet it be known: oversight of public debt is a constitutional duty and a moral responsibility of parliament. This is about safeguarding Nigeria\u2019s financial future, not playing to the gallery of mischief-makers,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
The article was originally published on Politics Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, has clarified his position on Nigeria\u2019s debt profile, insisting he never condemned government borrowing.Abbas had criticised the country\u2019s reliance on loans during his remarks at the 11th Annual Conference and General Assembly of the West Africa Association of Public Accounts Committees (WAAPAC).While the Speaker had expressed concern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":235497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/images-2025-09-08T210111.334.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abiaradiostations.com.ng\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}