The Nigerian government cannot ask citizens to trust a new $1.5 billion loan while withholding reports showing how the 2025 budget was implemented.
Development Diaries reports that the government has confirmed the first $1.5 billion drawdown from a five-billion-dollar financing facility from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even as the 2025 Budget Performance Report remains unavailable to the public more than halfway into 2026.
The quarterly implementation reports required under the Fiscal Responsibility Act for 2025 have also yet to be published or made publicly accessible.
Both developments deserve attention because they raise the same accountability question. Before borrowing more money, citizens deserve to know what happened to the money already appropriated in the last budget.
The Fiscal Responsibility Act requires the Minister of Finance to publish quarterly and annual reports showing how government budgets are implemented. Those reports help citizens see whether funds approved for hospitals, schools, roads, agriculture and other public services actually reached the projects they were meant to finance.
Without those reports, Nigerians cannot tell whether ministries delivered what they promised, capital projects were completed as approved or previous borrowing achieved the objectives for which it was obtained.
The government has every right to borrow for national development if the borrowing is necessary, affordable and properly managed. Many countries borrow to finance infrastructure and economic growth.
Borrowing, however, works best when it is accompanied by transparency. Asking citizens to embrace a new $1.5 billion loan while last year’s budget performance remains out of public view is rather like asking a bank manager for another loan while declining to discuss how the previous one was spent.
Even a neighbourhood cooperative society would probably ask a few questions before approving that request.
The same concern extends to the terms of the UAE financing facility. While government officials have confirmed the drawdown, key details such as the interest rate, repayment schedule and any collateral arrangements have not been publicly disclosed.
If the interest rate is higher than other available financing options, taxpayers eventually bear the additional cost. If future oil revenues or other public assets are committed as security, future governments inherit obligations that today’s citizens have every right to understand before those commitments are made.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reportedly raised concerns about the facility during its consultations with Nigeria, warning about possible fiscal sustainability risks. The government was not obliged to follow that advice, but citizens deserve to know why it considered the benefits of the loan to outweigh those concerns.
Budget performance reports often reveal whether allocations for primary healthcare, schools, nutrition programmes, water projects and other essential services were actually released and spent. When those reports are unavailable, citizens, civil society organisations and even lawmakers lose an important tool for measuring whether public money produced public results.
Women and children are usually among those most affected because health, education and social protection programmes often experience some of the widest gaps between approved budgets and actual spending. Persons with disabilities also depend on transparent reporting to determine whether funds allocated for disability inclusion were eventually released and used as intended.
The Budget Office should therefore publish the outstanding 2025 budget implementation reports without further delay, while the Debt Management Office should disclose the full terms of the UAE financing facility. The National Assembly should also insist on both documents as part of its constitutional oversight responsibility.
Government accountability is measured as much by what it publishes as by what it spends. Nigerians should not have to rely on assurances when the law already gives them the right to see the evidence.
