By Ademola Adekusibe
There is a difference between informing the public and manufacturing public outrage through selective presentation of facts. The renewed headlines surrounding Nigeria’s reported $21.7 billion external borrowing plan have exposed that difference in a way the Nigerian media should find deeply uncomfortable. A borrowing proposal that was already in public discussion in 2025 is now attracting fresh attention in October 2026, yet the historical context that should help Nigerians understand the development risks being overshadowed by the enormous figure placed before them. The public sees $21.7 billion and is naturally concerned, but concern without context can easily become confusion, and confusion becomes even more dangerous when the institutions responsible for explaining public affairs appear more interested in the shock value of a headline than in the substance of the story. My concern is not that the media is questioning President Bola Tinubu’s borrowing plans. It should. My concern is that reporting a fiscal proposal without adequately explaining its history, purpose and present status can leave millions of Nigerians with an impression that the facts may not support.
The Borrowing Plan Did Not Begin Today
The timeline is central to this controversy. In May 2025, an external borrowing plan of $21.5 billion, accompanied by a proposed €65 million grant and associated with the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, was already being discussed publicly in connection with the Federal Government’s Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper. This means that the broad borrowing proposal did not first emerge in October 2026. Its existence had already entered public discourse the previous year. Now that a figure of approximately $21.7 billion is circulating again, the first responsibility of every serious newsroom should be to establish whether the current report concerns that earlier programme, a revised proposal, an additional request or a separate financing arrangement. The difference between the previously discussed $21.5 billion and the currently reported $21.7 billion must also be explained rather than casually ignored. If the government has changed the scope of the programme, the public should know. If new approvals or agreements have been obtained, those developments should be reported. If the figure refers to an existing multi-year proposal, that history should be made unmistakably clear. What cannot be justified is presenting a complicated fiscal development in a manner that encourages readers to interpret it as a sudden new loan without first establishing precisely what has happened.
Imagine Telling Your Family Last Year That You Intend to Borrow This Year
Let us make this understandable without hiding behind the technical language of public finance. Imagine a Nigerian father sitting with his family in December 2025 and explaining that he intends to borrow money in 2026 to complete a house, expand his business and pay for his children’s education. He explains the amount he expects to need, the reasons for the borrowing and the year in which he plans to obtain the money. Months later, in October 2026, another person approaches the same family and announces dramatically that the man wants to borrow a huge amount of money. The announcement contains a real figure, but the family is not reminded that the intention was disclosed the previous year, that the proposed borrowing was intended for specific purposes or that the actual transaction still needs to be established. Naturally, the family becomes alarmed. Some members may believe that the man has suddenly made an irresponsible financial decision, while others may conclude that he has secretly taken on a new obligation. Yet the most important information needed to assess the situation has been left out. The family still has every right to question the wisdom of the borrowing, examine the repayment plan and demand evidence that the money will be put to good use. However, those questions should be asked with the complete history in view. That is the basic distinction Nigerians must understand in this controversy. A government announcing a borrowing intention for a future fiscal period is not automatically the same as a government collecting the entire amount in a single transaction. A borrowing proposal may pass through planning, legislative authorisation, negotiations, contractual commitments and eventual disbursement. Each stage has a different meaning, and journalism that collapses them into one dramatic announcement is failing to explain the issue adequately.
Where Is the Context Nigerians Deserve?
This is precisely why the media’s handling of the story deserves a harder examination. When a figure as large as $21.7 billion is published, the accompanying report should tell readers what the money is intended to finance, why the borrowing proposal was developed, what period it covers, what approvals have been secured and how much has actually been borrowed. The earlier proposal was associated with the government’s medium-term fiscal planning, which considers revenue projections, expenditure commitments, financing requirements and broader economic assumptions over a defined period. The public discussion surrounding the proposal connected it to the government’s need to finance its fiscal programme, including budget deficits and development priorities. Infrastructure and human-capital investment have featured among the administration’s stated spending priorities, but the precise allocation of the reported amount must be verified from the relevant official documents rather than assumed. That is exactly where investigative journalism should begin. Which projects are covered? What financing conditions apply? How much is intended for each purpose? What has the government already secured, and what remains a proposal? These questions would give Nigerians a meaningful basis for evaluating the borrowing plan. Instead, when coverage concentrates overwhelmingly on the frightening size of the figure while failing to explain its history and status, the public is encouraged to react before it has been adequately informed.
Is the Media Applying a Different Standard to Tinubu?
The presentation of this controversy reinforces a perception among some Nigerians that sections of the media approach President Tinubu’s administration with a predetermined hostility. In their view, developments involving the President are frequently framed through their most damaging interpretation, while context that could help readers understand those developments receives less attention. That perception should not be dismissed automatically as political defensiveness. The media must be willing to examine its own conduct with the same intensity it brings to government decisions. At the same time, the claim that media organisations are deliberately coordinating a campaign against the administration cannot be established merely because their reports are critical. It must be assessed through evidence, including the treatment of comparable stories, editorial framing, the selection of facts and the consistency of standards applied across administrations. The $21.7 billion controversy nevertheless raises an important question: would the same outlets present an equivalent borrowing proposal under another president in the same way? Would they explain that the proposal had already been discussed the previous year? Would they distinguish between a financing plan, an approved loan and money actually disbursed? If the answer changes depending on who occupies the presidential office, then Nigerians have a legitimate reason to question the consistency of the journalism. Criticising Tinubu is not evidence of bias by itself. But criticism that repeatedly omits essential context, applies inconsistent standards or encourages conclusions unsupported by the available facts deserves to be challenged. The press cannot demand accountability from government while treating its own editorial decisions as immune from scrutiny.
The Media Must Investigate the Purpose, Not Just Publicise the Figure
The proposed borrowing must be examined on its merits. Nigeria has significant infrastructure, development and fiscal financing needs, but the existence of those needs does not automatically justify every loan. The government must establish the purpose of the financing, disclose its terms and demonstrate that the expected benefits justify the cost. Nigerians deserve to know the interest rates, repayment periods, grace periods, currency exposure and other material conditions attached to any eventual borrowing. They also deserve a transparent account of the projects to be financed, the amounts allocated to them and the expected economic returns. If the money is intended for roads, railways, electricity, healthcare, education or other development priorities, the administration should identify the specific projects and explain how their implementation will be monitored. If the borrowing is intended to help finance a budget deficit, the government must explain the revenue shortfall, the expenditure commitments involved and how its fiscal strategy is expected to improve the country’s position over time. These are the questions that matter to ordinary Nigerians because debt is not merely a political talking point. It creates obligations that must ultimately be met from public resources. However, the media cannot adequately investigate those questions if it is content to place a dramatic figure before readers without establishing the details behind it. A headline can attract attention, but only serious reporting can explain whether the borrowing is justified, excessive, necessary or poorly managed.
Accountability Must Apply to Both the Government and the Media
The Tinubu administration should not be allowed to hide behind the argument that the borrowing plan was announced last year. An earlier announcement does not make a proposal automatically sound, nor does it excuse the government from explaining what has changed since its initial presentation. If the current figure represents a revised programme, Nigerians must be told why the amount has increased. If the government has obtained new approvals or entered into fresh financing agreements, the details should be made public. If money has already been disbursed, the administration should disclose how much has been received and how it is being used. If the proposal remains at an earlier stage, that status should also be made clear. The government has a duty to provide transparent, verifiable information, while the media has a duty to report that information accurately and in context. Neither institution should be permitted to use the failures of the other as an excuse for its own shortcomings. The public deserves a complete account of the borrowing plan, not political defence on one side and sensational reporting on the other. An administration that seeks public confidence must be willing to answer difficult questions, and a media that claims to represent the public interest must be willing to ask those questions without distorting the facts.
When Headlines Become Political Weapons
The danger emerges when financial reporting becomes indistinguishable from political messaging. A multibillion-dollar figure is capable of provoking anger before a reader has examined a single detail. When a report fails to establish whether the figure is new, what period it covers or how much has actually been borrowed, the headline can become the entire story in the public imagination. That is a serious failure because the public may come away believing that a new financial transaction has occurred when the available information has not established that conclusion. The media may not intend every such impression, but responsible journalism requires newsrooms to consider how their wording represents the facts. It is not enough to defend a headline by pointing to the presence of a genuine number if the framing leaves readers with a materially misleading understanding of what that number represents. A publication that discovers its reporting has created such an impression should correct it clearly and prominently. Accuracy must be measured not only by whether a figure appears in a document, but also by whether the report explains that figure truthfully.
The public is entitled to question whether some outlets have become more interested in weakening the political standing of Tinubu’s administration than in helping Nigerians understand its policies. That concern should be tested through documented comparisons, not treated as an established conspiracy. But the media must understand that it cannot continuously demand public trust while providing insufficient context on issues as consequential as national borrowing. Credibility is earned through accuracy, consistency and a willingness to acknowledge mistakes. It is not secured by the authority of a masthead or the popularity of a headline.
Nigeria Deserves Journalism That Explains Before It Condemns
The controversy surrounding the reported $21.7 billion borrowing plan should have become an opportunity to educate Nigerians about public debt, fiscal planning, the difference between a proposed loan and a completed transaction, and the purposes for which external financing may be sought. It should have prompted a careful examination of what was announced in 2025, what has changed in 2026, why the reported figure differs from the earlier amount, what the government intends to finance and what obligations the country may eventually assume. Those are the details that would empower citizens to assess the administration’s economic decisions intelligently. Instead, any coverage that presents the amount without adequately establishing its timeline and current status risks turning a matter of public finance into another episode of political outrage.
My position is straightforward: the media has every right to challenge President Tinubu, and Nigerians have every right to demand that his government justify every naira and dollar it borrows. But those rights do not excuse incomplete reporting, inconsistent standards or headlines that blur the distinction between intention and execution. If the borrowing proposal was already in public discussion last year, that fact belongs at the centre of the story, not at the margins. If the government has made a new financial commitment, the evidence should be presented. If the figure has changed, the reason should be established. And if the administration has failed to explain the proposal adequately, journalists should pursue the answers rather than allow the size of the number to substitute for investigation.
The media cannot claim to defend Nigerians by leaving them with more confusion than clarity. It cannot demand transparency from the government while failing to provide context in its own reporting. Above all, it cannot expect the public to trust its coverage if citizens increasingly suspect that political preferences influence the presentation of economic facts.
Nigeria does not need headlines that merely frighten its people with billions of dollars. It needs journalism that explains where those billions came from, what they are intended to finance, what has happened since the plan was first announced and what the country will ultimately be required to repay. That is the standard the media must meet, and any newsroom that falls short must be prepared to answer for it.