On June 13, 2024, the World Bank approved a $2.25 billion financing packagefor Nigeria. Within 48 hours, almost nobody was asking what Nigeria had given in exchange.

Press releases mentioned "economic stabilisation" and "inclusive growth". What they didn't lead with is that the second $750 million tranche was tied to specific actions Nigeria had already completed — fuel subsidy removal, exchange rate unification and a new fiscal reform framework.

These were not polite suggestions from Washington. They were binding conditions, and this is how borrowing works every single time.

By the end of 2025, Nigeria's total public debt had reached N159.27 trillion, roughly $111 billion, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). External debt alone stood at $51.86 billion, compared to about $10 billion in 2015.

That is a five-fold increase in a decade, driven by oil revenue shocks, the COVID-19 emergency, persistent naira devaluations and infrastructure gaps that successive administrations preferred to borrow around rather than address structurally.

Every one of those loans came with terms. The question is how many Nigerians have read them.

How the Borrowing Works

Nigeria's external creditors fall into three categories. They include multilateral institutions (the World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank); bilateral lenders led by China's Exim Bank; and commercial creditors through Eurobonds.

Each category carries different interest rates, different timelines and a very different set of demands.

The formal process runs through the Ministry of Finance and DMO, up to Federal Executive Council and National Assembly approval, then into negotiation and phased disbursement.

In practice, the conditions that shape Nigeria's policy landscape are buried in loan agreements the public rarely sees until after they are signed, that is if it is ever seen.

A parliament was presented with loan approvals without the full terms disclosed. A minister once told lawmakers investigating one of those loans that the probe itself would "jeopardise Nigeria's chances of future borrowing".

That is the level of transparency currently on offer.

Multilateral Loans: The Price of Cheap Money

The World Bank is Nigeria's single largest creditor, holding $18.04 billion, about 38% of total external debt. Most flows through the International Development Association (IDA) with interest rates near zero to 2%, maturities of 20 to 30 years, and grace periods of five to ten.

The terms are genuinely favourable relative to commercial borrowing. But this cheap comes with a barrage of conditions.

The June 2024 RESET package, which contains $1.5 billion in Development Policy Financing, structured alongside the $750 million ARMOR Program-for-Results, illustrates how multilateral conditionality actually functions.

The loans were disbursed in tranches tied to Disbursement-Linked Indicators. These are specific, measurable reform actions Nigeria had to demonstrate before each tranche was released.

Fuel subsidy removal unlocked the first tranche. Exchange rate unification and fiscal governance commitments unlocked the second.

It is simple: Nigeria reforms first, money follows.

The IMF's $3.4 billion emergency disbursement in April 2020, under the Rapid Financing Instrument, deployed to cushion the COVID-19 collapse, was comparatively light on formal conditionality.

The RFI is built for speed. Nigeria fully repaid the loan by April 2025.

However, the IMF's annual Article IV consultations have consistently pushed the same structural agenda: revenue mobilisation, VAT reform, subsidy removal, and reduced central bank deficit financing.

These are not loan conditions when no active programme exists. They nonetheless shape what Nigeria does when it returns to borrow.

Standard requirements across multilateral loans include competitive international procurement, environmental and social impact assessments, independent audits and ongoing progress monitoring.

If benchmarks go unmet, disbursements can be suspended.

Chinese Loans: Infrastructure on Specific Terms

China's Exim Bank is Nigeria's largest bilateral creditor at $4.91 billion, accounting for roughly 80% of bilateral debt. The financial terms are workable with approximately 2 to 2.5% interest, 20-year repayment periods and a seven-year grace period.

The infrastructure is visible. The Abuja-Kaduna railway, the Lagos-Ibadan line, four airport terminal expansions, the Abuja light rail are evidence.

What is far less visible are the conditions written into the agreements.

In 2020, Nigerian lawmakers investigating a 2018 loan for a national ICT infrastructure projectcame across Article 8(1): Nigeria "irrevocably waives any immunity on the grounds of sovereign or otherwise for itself or its property in connection with any arbitration proceeding."

Military and diplomatic assets are excluded.

Legal analysts have since clarified that the waiver applies only within the scope of that specific agreement; it is not a wholesale surrender of state sovereignty, but the clause means that in a default scenario, other state assets could be subject to enforcement of an arbitration award.

Tied procurement is the more structural condition. Chinese Exim Bank loans require that projects be executed primarily by Chinese firms, using Chinese equipment, materials and labour.

This effectively sidestepsNigeria's Public Procurement Act, which mandates competitive bidding. The Abuja-Kaduna and Lagos-Ibadan railways were both built by CCECC, a Chinese state construction company.

The financing originates in China, flows largely back to China through contracts, and Nigeria carries the debt on its books.

What This Actually Means

Over 80% of government revenue currently goes to debt servicing, according to BudgIT. That figure puts the rest in context.

It is why road rehabilitation stalls mid-project, why federal discretionary spending is as constrained as it is, and why every budget conversation eventually runs into the same wall.

Every dollar remitted to a foreign creditor is a dollar not building anything domestically.

The naira's depreciation, from roughly N460 per dollar in mid-2023 to over N1,500 by early 2024, also inflated the naira cost of existing dollar-denominated debt without Nigeria borrowing a single additional cent.

Exchange rate movement alone can widen a debt burden sharply. Layer new borrowing on top, and the numbers compound quickly.

For ordinary Nigerians, loan conditions translate concretely as subsidy removal without equivalent social protection in place, as taxes that must be broadened to meet lender requirements, as infrastructure projects built under terms that limit local employment and technology transfer, and as a budget structurally constrained by prior commitments that were never put to a public vote.

Nigeria borrows because the fiscal fundamentals leave limited alternatives. However, the conditions negotiated into these agreements are not technical details that exist separate from daily life.

They are policy decisions. The DMO publishes debt stock figures. The full loan agreements, and every condition within them, should be equally public.

Accountability on public borrowing cannot begin with summaries. It has to start with what Nigeria actually signed.