Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, has called on West African parliaments to strengthen oversight of public debt to prevent fiscal crises across the continent.
Delivering a keynote at the 11th Annual Conference and General Assembly of the West Africa Association of Public Accounts Committees (WAAPAC), Speaker Abbas warned that Africa’s rising debt profile—currently pegged at $1.8 trillion—threatens economic stability and development.
He highlighted that Western private lenders now hold 35 percent of Africa’s debt, with multilateral institutions accounting for 39 percent, bilateral loans 13 percent, and Chinese creditors 12 percent. Abbas noted that debt servicing has overtaken healthcare and development spending in many African states, leaving economies vulnerable.
The Speaker announced Nigeria’s readiness to champion the creation of a West African Parliamentary Debt Oversight Framework under WAAPAC, designed to harmonize reporting standards and strengthen transparency. He also pledged Nigeria’s support for a capacity-building programme to equip parliamentary committees with modern tools for debt sustainability analysis.
He stressed that debt must fund productive sectors like infrastructure, education, and health—not reckless consumption or corruption. “Oversight is not just about figures; it is about the lives and futures behind those figures,” Abbas said.
The five-day conference, hosted by Nigeria’s Public Accounts Committee, brings together lawmakers and development partners to craft collective strategies for fiscal accountability in the region.
