President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday asked the Senate to approve a new borrowing request of $800 million.
Buhari made the request in a letter read by Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, at the plenary.
The president, in the letter, explained that the loan would be used to scale up the National Social Safety Net Programme.
He said the new borrowing would be sourced from the World Bank.
Meanwhile, in 2022, states’ external debt rose to $4.56bn, while the Federal Government’s external debt increased to $35.5bn.
The country’s external debt ballooned as the naira lost value, increasing Nigeria’s debt service burden and worsening its ability to service debt. The International Monetary Fund recently said that the long-term rate of the depreciation of the naira equated to a loss of 10.6 per cent of its value annually since 1973.
According to the IMF, this rate was 1.5 times higher than the long-term rate of the currencies of other emerging markets and developing economies at 7.2 per cent and sub-Saharan Africa at seven per cent over the same time period.