Former presidential candidate Peter Obi warns that Nigeria borrows without growth. He points to World Bank data that shows Nigeria’s heavy exposure to concessional lending. He contrasts Nigeria’s performance since 2015 with Bangladesh’s rapid expansion.
This feature examines those claims, checks the data, and asks why borrowed resources failed to translate into productivity.
Why this matters
Debt is not a sin. When well deployed it buys power, roads, factories and schooling. When misapplied it buys consumption, graft and stagnation. The difference shapes livelihoods across the country.
The claim and the numbers
Peter Obi argues that Nigeria is now the third largest borrower from the World Bank’s concessional arm. He states that the country’s development outcomes have deteriorated since 2015. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has used borrowing to grow.
Recent data show Nigeria’s IDA exposure rose to roughly $18.7 billion, placing it near the top of the list of low income country borrowers.
Bangladesh’s nominal GDP in 2015 is commonly cited near $195 billion. By 2024, international institutions report Bangladesh’s nominal GDP will be near the $450–500 billion range. Its per capita income is notably higher than a decade earlier. This reflects sustained manufacturing and export gains.
Nigeria’s headline comparison is stark. In 2015 Nigeria’s nominal GDP stood in the roughly $490 billion range. By 2024 the nominal figure reported after rebasing is substantially lower in dollar terms.
A recent recalculation of Nigeria’s GDP raised the naira-denominated GDP. However, the dollar value remains around $240–$340 billion in different datasets. This is because of currency depreciation and methodological updates.
That fall or stagnation in dollar terms coincides with lower measured per-capita incomes than in 2015.
What the numbers miss and what they reveal
Factcheck first. The headline comparison should use consistent measures. Using nominal dollar GDP without adjusting for exchange rate shocks or rebasing can mislead.
Nigeria’s economy was officially rebased in 2024. This added previously excluded sectors, raising the naira GDP. However, it did not reverse the large dollar losses caused by currency depreciation.
Bangladesh’s growth is both real and sustained and comes with export diversification and productivity gains. The two stories are not identical but they are directionally instructive.
Second, the type of borrowing matters. IDA and concessional lending are by their nature for development if attached to projects that improve public capital.
The economics that follow depend on several factors. These include procurement, project selection, and governance. Another crucial factor is the macroeconomic framework that protects the real value of investment.
Nigeria’s experience shows significant leakage and weak project execution in many sectors. That turns promising loans into fiscal servicing burdens rather than growth catalysts.
Channels where borrowed funds should show up
Productive borrowing raises capital formation, exports and human capital. Bangladesh shows a mix of policies. These policies fostered textiles, light manufacturing, and infrastructure investments. Simultaneously, they maintained an export orientation and an active industrial policy.
Nigeria has pockets of success. Overall, it suffers from an energy deficit and weak logistics. The country has a concentrated oil export base and faces governance problems that reduce the multiplier effect on public investment.
Concrete examples where outcomes fall short include energy projects that fail to deliver stable power. Road projects often have cost overruns. Additionally, recurrent spending sometimes substitutes for investment.
These failures lower the productivity of borrowed capital and raise the risk premium investors demand, making future borrowing costlier.
The political economy of leakages
Loans can be misused through inflated contracts. They can also be diverted into phantom projects. Rapid devaluation erodes the real value of capital goods bought with foreign currency.
The result is higher debt servicing and less real capital created on the ground.
This is not a technocratic problem alone. It is shaped by incentives in public procurement, party financing, weak oversight and capacity constraints in project implementation.
Peter Obi’s central normative point — money must buy productivity — is therefore correct. The policy challenge is turning that principle into enforceable systems that bind actors across budgets, tenders and disbursements.
Policy priorities if Nigeria is to borrow for growth
• Stronger project appraisal and independent feasibility checks before loans are signed.
• Transparent procurement with digital trails and public dashboards.
• Anchor macro policy to protect the naira real value of investment and avoid ad hoc monetisation.
• Focus on exportable manufacturing and energy projects that unlock private investment.
• Tighten monitoring with direct outcome metrics rather than input spending.
Each of these reduces leakage and raises the chance that a borrowed dollar today funds a productive asset tomorrow.
What success looks like
If borrowing funds power plants that run, and trains that lower logistics costs, then debt ratios can fall. Factories that export and schools that teach skills contribute to this as GDP rises.
Bangladesh’s decade of steady export growth and industrialisation offers an example. Policy choices, institutional change, and international finance combined to create a virtuous cycle.
Editorial view
Obi’s argument is more than political theatre. It is a sober reminder that fiscal space is fungible and finite.
For citizens the question is simple. Will loans buy us factories and power or consumption and subsidies that vanish into opaque channels.
The past decade suggests the answer in many cases is the latter.
Turning the narrative requires political will. It also needs institutional contracts. A national consensus is necessary that borrowed money must be measured by output, not by contract volume.
Bottom line
Nigeria faces a debt dilemma not because it borrowed but because borrowed funds too often failed to buy productivity.
The evidence supports the claim that Bangladesh converted borrowing into growth while Nigeria lagged.
The remedy is not austerity for its own sake. It is better governance, sharper project choices, and accountability mechanisms. These ensure loans build the assets that grow incomes.
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