The Federal Government acquired Ways and Means Advances worth N23,719,703,774,306.90 from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the House of Representatives approved them on Thursday.

The National Assembly had rejected domestic borrowing from the CBN in January 2023, but the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retired), had been pleading with the MPs to reconsider since December 2022.

The Senate’s support of the president’s proposal sparked outrage, notably from the corporate sector, and the House’s approval came around 24 hours later.

Three weeks prior to the conclusion of the Buhari-led administration, the approvals came in.

The Joint House Committee on Finance, Banking and Currency, and Aids, Loans and Debt Management released its report on the proposal on Thursday, and the legislators discussed it in a Committee of Supply before approving it in plenary.

The committee advised the House to “approve the requested additional N1 trillion Ways and Means Advances for the implementation of the 2022 Supplementary Appropriations Act as passed by the National Assembly” and “approve the securitization of the total outstanding Ways and Means amount under the following terms: Amount N23,719,703,774,306.90; tenor, 40 years; moratorium on principal repayment, 3 years; pricing/interest rate, 9% per annum.”