Reno Omokri, slated to be Nigeria’s ambassador to Mexico, recently stirred up quite a conversation. Speaking at an induction for new ambassadors in April 2026, he confidently declared that Nigeria’s public debt had significantly shrunk under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s leadership. He specifically claimed that the national debt, which stood at a hefty $113 billion in June 2023, had miraculously dropped to $103 billion by April 2026. This, he argued, was a clear sign of progress, and he even took a jab at critics like former governor Peter Obi, accusing them of muddying the waters by focusing on the debt in naira instead of the arguably more stable U.S. dollar. Omokri painted a picture of a government diligently reducing financial burdens, a narrative that quickly went viral, prompting intense financial debates across social media platforms.
However, as enticing as Omokri’s claims sounded, they quickly came under scrutiny. The FactCheckHub, a diligent fact-checking organization, took it upon themselves to verify this assertion, and their findings painted a very different picture. Their investigation delved into the official figures provided by Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO), the authoritative body responsible for tracking the nation’s financial obligations. It turns out that while Omokri’s initial figures for June 2023 were correct – the total public debt was indeed around $113.42 billion – his subsequent figures for April 2026 were, unfortunately, misleading. The DMO’s data revealed that the debt had not consistently plummeted to $103 billion as suggested.
Let’s break down the actual journey of Nigeria’s debt, according to the DMO. Two months before President Tinubu took office, on March 31, 2023, the debt was $108.30 billion. With Tinubu’s administration coming in, by June 30, 2023, the debt did see an increase to $113.42 billion, a jump largely attributed to the unification of foreign exchange windows and the formal inclusion of “Ways and Means” loans from the Central Bank into the public debt. Fast forward to the end of September 2025 – a critical point in Omokri’s argument – the debt did temporarily drop to $103.94 billion. This is the figure Omokri seems to have latched onto, but it’s crucial to understand that this was not the most current data available at the time of his statement.
The DMO’s April 2026 report, the most up-to-date information, showed a significant shift. By the end of December 2025, the debt had surged once again, reaching $110.97 billion, far from the $103 billion Omokri quoted. This means Omokri’s claim of a $10 billion reduction was based on an outdated data point – the September 2025 figure – rather than the latest available information. When comparing the June 2023 debt of $113.42 billion with the December 2025 figure of $110.97 billion, the actual reduction is a modest $2.45 billion, a stark contrast to the $10 billion figure that had been widely publicized.
While Omokri emphasized the importance of viewing the debt in U.S. dollars to avoid the volatility of naira calculations, the local currency perspective remains incredibly important for understanding the domestic economic reality. And here, the picture is even more concerning for the average Nigerian. While the dollar-denominated debt saw a slight dip, the naira equivalent of the debt tells a different story. In June 2023, the debt stood at N87.38 trillion. By December 2025, it had ballooned to N159.28 trillion, representing a staggering 82.3 percent increase. This surge in naira terms reflects the drastic depreciation of the Nigerian currency against the dollar, directly impacting the cost of debt servicing within the country.
Ultimately, the verdict from The FactCheckHub was clear: Reno Omokri’s claim that Nigeria’s debt had been reduced by $10 billion between June 2023 and April 2026 was unequivocally FALSE. His narrative of significant debt reduction was built upon an outdated snapshot of the national debt from September 2025, rather than the most recent DMO data available at the time. This incident serves as a crucial reminder of the importance of thorough fact-checking and relying on official, up-to-date sources, especially when dealing with critical economic indicators that directly impact the lives of citizens. It highlights how easily a selective use of data can create a misleading impression of a nation’s financial health, underscoring the need for transparent and accurate communication from public figures.