June 24, 2021

The Federal and State governments are owing N33.11 trillion in public debts, as at March 31, according to latest figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

The NBS, who stated this in its “Nigerian domestic and foreign debt for Quarter one, 2021 (Q1 2021)”, added that upon disaggregation, the nation’s total public debt indicated that N12.47 trillion or 37.67 per cent of the debt was external, while N20.64 trillion or 62.33 per cent of the debt was domestic.

“The Federal Government’s domestic debt stock alone was put at N16.51 trillion, while States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) domestic debt stock was put at N4.12 trillion.

“Lagos state accounted for 12.31 per cent of the total domestic debt stock with N507.3 billion, while Jigawa State, with N31.7 billion, has the least debt stock in this category with a contribution of 0.77 per cent to the total domestic debt stock”, the report said.

To arrive at the figures, data was supplied administratively by the Debt Management Office (DMO), while the NBS verified and validated it, the report said.

Although the domestic debt stock for 35 States and the FCT were as at 31 March, 2021, that of Rivers was as at December 30, 2018.