{
  "id": 6158579,
  "title": "Atiku: Govt Benefiting From Higher Oil Prices must Avoid Reckless Borrowing",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/07/atiku-govt-benefiting-from-higher-oil-prices-must-avoid-reckless",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-07T18:14:08.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Daily Trust",
    "slug": "daily-trust",
    "url": "https://dailytrust.com/atiku-govt-benefiting-from-higher-oil-prices-must-avoid-reckless-borrowing/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticized the Federal Government's excessive borrowing as a sign of \"dangerous fiscal indiscipline\", stating it is starving Nigerian businesses of credit, killing jobs, and worsening the cost of living crisis. He noted that the borrowing has increased by 90.5% compared to the previous year, despite crude oil prices rising above the initial budget assumptions. Atiku questioned where the borrowed funds are going and why the government is now competing with businesses for credit. He highlighted that government credit has grown at about 4.5 times the rate of private sector credit, indicating that the economic reforms under the Tinubu administration have not yielded significant benefits for the private sector. Atiku warned that the government's borrowing is consuming the credit needed by businesses, leading to higher costs for credit, delayed expansion, factory struggles, job losses, and rising prices for goods and services. He pledged that if elected, his administration would enforce fiscal discipline, cut waste, prioritize productive expenditure, and reduce the government's dependence on the domestic credit market. Atiku stressed that prosperity cannot be achieved by allowing the government to consume the credit meant for production, stating that businesses should borrow to build factories, farmers should borrow to expand production, and entrepreneurs should access affordable capital to create jobs. He emphasized that the government must create space for the private sector to thrive, invest, produce, and employ, instead of consuming credit meant for these purposes.",
  "summary": "Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has described the Federal Government’s domestic borrowing as “evidence of dangerous fiscal indiscipline that is starving Nigerian businesses of credit, killing jobs and worsening the cost-of-living crisis”. In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said it was particularly alarming that the Tinubu […]",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}