Nigeria’s debt rises to N19trn – DMO

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has said that the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) currently owes N19.16 trillion to its foreign and local creditors.
According to DMO statistics, the total debt was N12.06 trillion before President Buhari took over the reign of government two years ago, meaning that over N7 trillion was added within 2 years of Buhari’s tenure.
The FGN’ domestic debt currently stands at N11.9 trillion which is up from N8.5 trillion as at March 31, 2015.
The country’s external debt (federal and state governments) rose from $9.46 billion to $13.81 billion. This means that the country’s external debt rose by $4.35b billion in the life of the current administration.
The DMO further explained that the official exchange rate of N306 to a dollar was used in calculating the country’s external debt for March 31st, 2017 and the official rate of N197 to a dollar was used in determining the foreign debt for March 31st, 2015. The domestic debt component of States currently stands at N2.96tn as of March 31, 2017, up from the figure of N1.69bn in 2015.This means that within the period of two years, the domestic debt of the states rose by N1.27tn or 75.15 per cent.
Nigeria closed 2016 with a debt to GDP ratio of 18.6 per cent. By the end of 2015, Nigeria’s debt to GDP ratio stood at 12.1 per cent, according to the World Bank. Nigeria’s GDP for the year ended December 31, 2016, stood at N67.98 trillion, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).