” The N65.9 trillion borrowed by the administration of President Bola Tinubu in the last 24 months is more than five times the total debt Nigeria incurred in the first 55 years of its Independence.”

This observation was made by Chairman of the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics LTD/GTE, Dele Oye.

Oye, who is the immediate past chairman of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN), noted that while successive governments accumulated debt over decades, the Tinubu administration alone added N65.9 trillion in two years, compared to just N12 trillion accumulated over 55 years.

He revealed that, with Nigeria’s total public debt of N159.28 trillion as of April 2026, according to the Debt Management Office, every Nigerian owes N670,000, lamenting the rapid expansion of Nigeria’s debt profile in recent years.

Oye cautioned that unless urgent measures are taken to strengthen revenue generation and fiscal discipline, the rising debt burden could place long-term pressure on public finances and constrain government spending on critical sectors.

Cast your mind back to 2006. Nigeria had just pulled off one of the most celebrated fiscal feats in African history. President Olusegun Obasanjo paid $12 billion to extinguish $30 billion in Paris Club debt. Nigeria was, briefly, externally debt-free. The Excess Crude Account (ECA) was flush. The future looked fundable. Twenty years later, that golden moment reads like a fairy tale. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, debt crept back to N12.06 trillion by 2015, manageable, but the warning signs were already blinking. Then came the Buhari years.

“In eight years, the debt exploded from N12.06 trillion to N87.38 trillion, a 620 percent increase. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was pressed into printing money through ‘Ways and Means’ advances; N23.7 trillion of this was eventually securitised into long-term bonds, effectively converting a government overdraft into a generational liability.

“Tinubu’s administration has added a further N65.9 trillion in just two years. To put that in perspective: it took Nigeria’s first 55 years of independence to accumulate N12 trillion in debt. The present administration has added more than five times that amount in 24 months,” said Oye.

The Nigerian naira traded within a relatively stable range against the United States dollar on Monday, May 25, 2026, across both the official Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM) and the parallel market.

Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s NFEM window showed the official exchange rate hovering around ₦1,375 per dollar, following the last recorded closing rate of ₦1,375.46/$ on May 22.

Meanwhile, rates in the parallel market, also known as the black market, remained slightly higher as Bureau De Change operators in Lagos and Abuja quoted the dollar at around ₦1,385 for buying and between ₦1,395 and ₦1,400 for selling.

(Vanguard)

The National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents, (NCMDLCA) has observed that the current structure of the National Single Window at Nigerian seaports fall short of the globally accepted model of a true single-window platform.

“The National Single Window is not effective. What we have now is more of a multiple-window system that duplicates Customs functions,” said Lucky Amiwero, the National President of NCMDLCA.

According to him, delays in obtaining approvals from agencies such as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) have worsened congestion and increased the cost of doing business.

He said, “A proper single window should involve single administration, single transaction, and single delivery. Once processes are harmonised at the backend, cargo clearance should be seamless.

“But importers are still required to interact separately with agencies like NAFDAC and SON. That defeats the purpose of a single-window system.”

Amiwero, disclosed that some importers now pay as much as N100,000 daily in demurrage to shipping companies and terminal operators while awaiting approvals from regulatory agencies.

Amiwero also pointed out that the Nigerian Revenue Service, which is driving the initiative, lacks the expertise required for customs and import procedures, insisting that tax administration and customs operations should remain separate.