The Debt Management Office (DMO) has disclosed via its website that the Nigerian government accrued a total N41trillion debt as of March 2022.
The DMO said on Tuesday that Nigeria’s total public debt stock rose in the first quarter of 2022 from N39.56 trillion as of December 2021.
The DMO said, “The total public debt stock as at March 31, 2022, was N41.60tn or $100.07bn, according to the Debt Management Office.
“The amount represents the domestic and external debt stocks of the Federal Government of Nigeria, the thirty-six state governments and the Federal Capital Territory. The comparative figures for December 31, 2021, were N39.56tn or $95.78bn.”
The debt includes the total domestic and external debts of the Federal Government and state governments and the Federal Capital Territory.
The implication of this new debt is that each Nigerian now owes N200, 966 as their share of the country’s debt when shared by 207million persons.
The public debt to GDP is now 23.27 per cent, which is below Nigeria’s self-imposed limit of 40 per cent, according to an analysis done by Ripples Nigeria.
The agency further said the total public debt stock includes new domestic borrowing by the FGN to partly finance the deficit in the 2022 Appropriation Act, the $1.25bn Eurobond issued in March 2022 and disbursements by multilateral and bilateral lenders, adding that there were also increases in the debt stock of the state governments and the FCT.
