Nigeria on Credit: The Borrowing Culture of the Administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Its Sociological Implications
Public borrowing has become one of the defining indicators of state fiscal direction in developing economies, particularly where governments confront revenue shortages, reform pressures, and rising developmental demands. Against this background, this paper examined Nigeria on Credit: The Borrowing Culture of the Administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Its Sociological Implications. The paper specifically examined the patterns and drivers of public borrowing under the Tinubu administration, assessed the social consequences of the administration’s borrowing practices on citizens’ welfare and socioeconomic development, and analysed the implications of the borrowing culture for public trust, governance legitimacy, and state–citizen relations in Nigeria. The paper was anchored on Conflict Theory propounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which provided the analytical basis for understanding borrowing as a social process shaped by power relations and distributive struggles. The paper adopted the analytical review method through critical examination of contemporary empirical studies, fiscal reports, policy analyses, and documented evidence relevant to Nigeria’s debt trajectory. The paper revealed that borrowing under the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu administration is driven by structural fiscal constraints, weak domestic revenue generation, exchange-rate pressures, and reform-induced adjustment costs. The paper further found that current borrowing practices have intensified welfare pressures through inflation, declining purchasing power, and constrained social service delivery, while also weakening public trust due to concerns over transparency and distributive fairness. The paper concluded that borrowing remains a legitimate fiscal tool only when tied to accountable utilisation and visible social benefits. The paper therefore recommended stronger debt transparency mechanisms, targeted social protection measures, and accelerated domestic revenue diversification to reduce dependence on sustained borrowing.
KEYWORDS: Public Borrowing, Bola Ahmed Tinubu Administration, Sociological Implications, Governance Legitimacy, State–Citizen Relations, Fiscal Reforms, Nigeria.
