CITIZEN MONITORS PRESS CENTER:

Civic-tech platform, Citizen Monitors, today, called on the Federal Government to couple Nigeria’s rising borrowing, with radical transparency, stronger debt-risk controls, and citizen-level tracking of project results.

According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s total public debt stood at ₦149.39 trillion (≈ $97.24bn) as of March 31, 2025, with nearly half in foreign currency.

With a new external borrowing plan exceeding $21 Billion recently cleared by the Senate, Citizen Monitors says Nigerians deserve a clear view of what is being borrowed, on what terms, and for what outcomes.

“Debt isn’t the enemy, opacity is,” said Adeshope Haastrup, Co-founder of Citizen Monitors. “If loans are truly for classrooms, clinics, power and jobs, then publish the term sheets, publish the project milestones, and let citizens see the outputs, month by month.”

Citizen Monitors outlined six immediate actions to rebuild public trust:

• Publish non-confidential loan terms and project annexes for every new facility.
• Quarterly, machine-readable debt data (by lender, currency, rate, maturity, and disbursement).
• Cap non-concessional FX borrowing and disclose hedging/risk policy.
• Project dashboards for each loan, with physical progress and community verification.
• Clear public notes on commodity-backed and para-sovereign deals (like crude prepayments).
• Open contracting (OCDS) and independent monitors for all loan-funded procurements.

The call follows recent lender actions, including World Bank approvals of $2.25 Billion (June 2024) for macro reforms and $1.08 Billion (April 2025) for education, nutrition and resilience; a $254.76 Million release from China Development Bank for the Kano–Kaduna rail; and China Exim-backed roads finance approvals—all of which heighten the need for clear, public, project-level tracking.

“Citizen Monitors is ready to help” Olajumoke Alawode-James, Spokesperson and Head of Communications, added. “Give the public data, and we’ll provide the dashboard. Every kilometer of road, every classroom, every megawatt built with borrowed funds should be visible and verifiable.”

Citizen Monitors is a civic tech platform that crowd-sources elections and governance data, enabling Nigerians to upload evidence, track elections, and hold institutions accountable.