Nigeria's Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo (photo), has asked the parliament to approve the issuance of a new $500 million Eurobond to plug its budget deficit.

“Following the high oversubscription of the recent $1 billion Eurobond issuance, we wish to take advantage of favorable market conditions to issue a Eurobond Debt Instrument of $500 million to fund the implementation of the budget,” he said in a letter addressed to the parliament.

The new Eurobond if issued would be the second after another of $1 billion 15-year bonds, earlier this month. This aims at filling the $7billion gap in the 2016 budget.

Nigeria, it should be recalled, is in talks to acquire at least a $1 billion loan from the World Bank, a $1.3 billion loan from China to fund railway projects. Moreover, the country is working on an economic reform plan which it will present the African Development Bank (AfDB) for it to release a second loan tranche worth $400 million.

President Muhammadu Buhari in this year’s budget outlined plans to spend $22.5 billion to get the economy back up as it struggled to fund last year’s budget of $19.4bn, as it was hit by the crash in oil prices and attacks on its oil infrastructures. The nation entered its first recession in 25 years since its gets most of its revenues from the resource.

Anita Fatunji