FG says N80 trillion borrowing claims are exaggerated. Are we supposed to clap?

So the Minister of Finance, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, went before the Senate Committee on Finance today to explain that the N80 trillion borrowing figure people are throwing around is not accurate. He said the real new borrowing is much less because the N75 trillion debt inherited from Buhari has ballooned due to naira devaluation and accounting adjustments. According to him, the foreign currency component was revalued, adding over N40 trillion, and the securitisation of Ways and Means added about N33 trillion — all existing obligations, not fresh loans.

Now, I am a civil engineer from Ibadan, not an economist. But I have been around long enough to know that when a government starts explaining debt with words like 'revaluation' and 'securitisation', what they are really saying is that the burden is still on our heads. Whether it is new borrowing or old debt revalued, the result is the same: we owe more, the naira is weaker, and the capital budget is not being implemented properly — which the senators themselves complained about. The minister's explanation might be technically correct, but it does not change the fact that our children will be paying for decisions made today.

I am old enough to remember when Awolowo warned that a nation that does not manage its fiscal discipline will end up begging. Here we are in 2026, still debating whether N80 trillion is borrowed or just 'adjusted'. The question nobody is answering is simple: what exactly did we get for all this money? Where are the roads, the railways, the stable electricity? Abeg, let us argue this one. Am I the only one tired of these accounting gymnastics?