The Worrisome Spate Of Poverty, Deprivation, Hopelessness, And Insecurity In Nigeria Amid Reckless Borrowing By Government

Nigeria carries the largest share of poor people on the African continent yet has, since 2015, accumulated one of the fastest-growing sovereign debt profiles in the developing world. The contradiction is not accidental. This study examines how the pattern and composition of Nigeria's public borrowing between 2015 and 2026 has interacted with, and in important respects deepened, the country's poverty, deprivation, hopelessness, and insecurity crises. The problem is not borrowing per se but its recklessness: a structural tendency to apply deficit financing to recurrent expenditure and debt servicing rather than productive capital formation, leaving citizens more exposed with each successive budget cycle. This study adopts a qualitative analytical methodology, drawing on reports from the Debt Management Office, the National Bureau of Statistics, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Afrobarometer surveys, alongside peer-reviewed literature published between 2020 and 2026. The theoretical framework integrates debt overhang theory, rentier state theory, and the human security framework to explain both the economic mechanics and the political logic of Nigeria's borrowing behaviour. Findings reveal that Nigeria's total public debt stock crossed One hundred and twenty-one trillion naira in 2024, that debt servicing consumed 96.3% of federal revenue in 2023, and that 133 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty as of 2022. Borrowed funds have not closed infrastructure deficits; they have instead sustained elite patronage networks and fed recurrent expenditure. The study recommends a statutory debt ceiling tied to capital expenditure ratios, full implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007, and a restructuring of domestic borrowing away from trea