Senator Orji Kalu has defended the government’s borrowings and warned that the nation’s economy could collapse without external funding in light of worries about the country’s rising debt load.
The senator addressed criticism of the National Assembly’s role in approving executive loan requests on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“Let me tell you, this country will collapse if it doesn’t borrow.” That is accurate. The former Abia State Governor stated that this is where we are.
Kalu pressed on whether legislators properly scrutinized loan applications, insisting that the oversight procedure is still in place.
“Of course.” They are subject to scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Debt and Local Debt. That committee does not include me. Most of these tasks are performed on committee levels. The National Assembly did a good job, he said, adding that.
Not a Rubber Stamp, please.
Nigeria fully repaid the $3.4 billion IMF loan it received during the COVID-19 crisis in April 2025. The nation will continue to be subject to Special Drawing Rights (SDR) fees associated with the facility, which are estimated to be around $30 million annually.
Despite this, Nigeria plans to borrow an additional $ 26 billion between 2025 and 2026 to close the country’s deficits and fuel economic growth, a move that many Nigerians have criticized as a “rubber stamp” the National Assembly.
Read more about Nigeria’s external debt servicing at $5.2 billion in 2025 by Fitch.
The former Senate Chief Whip, however, has refrained from criticizing and argued that all laws are adhered to in accordance with the law.
He claimed that “any law or legislation you see passed in the National Assembly has passed the standards set forth. I’m satisfied once it has a course. That is what lawmaking entails.
Kalu refrained from claiming that lawmakers were abusing their legal authority and cited the tax bill’s recent passage as evidence of Senate vigor.
“We’re very thorough,” he says. People only want to see us and the executive engaged. We are mature. We can’t fight. We have safeguards in place to protect that in Nigeria’s best interests.
I went to the Senate President’s house to congratulate him the day the tax bill was passed. It was done thoroughly. We took it one by one the evenings we were there, at seven and six. He continued, “A rubber stamp doesn’t do that,”
Nigerians are still suffering, though.
Senator Kalu also addressed the economic hardship that Nigerians have experienced since the naira’s flotation and the end of the fuel subsidy in 2023.
He acknowledged President Bola Tinubu’s reform initiatives, but he also acknowledged that the effects had not yet reached the populace.
The “macro side” is coming, but the “other downsides” are not very well-developed. Lower-ranking Nigerians are still suffering. According to Kalu, they have not yet begun to benefit from the modifications that President Tinubu is making.
He attributed the country’s persistent insecurity, which has hampered farming and other productive activities, to the slow pace of economic recovery.
Source: Channels TV
Leave a Reply