Nigeria’s public debt reached N97 trillion in December 2023 – DMO

On Friday, March 22, the Debt Management Office declared that the total amount of Nigeria’s public debt as of December 31, 2023, stands at N97.341 trillion, or 108.229 billion dollars.

The agency added that the new figure shows an increase of N9.43 trillion over the comparative figure for September 30, 2023. The agency noted that the amount consisted of the federal government, the 36 state governments, and the Federal Capital Territory’s (FCT) domestic and external debt stocks.

This was primarily caused by disbursements from multilateral and bilateral lenders as well as new domestic borrowing by the federal government to partially finance the budget deficit in 2024.

The DMO declared “Total domestic debt, at N59.12 trillion, made up 61% of the stock of public debt, with the remaining 39% coming from external debt, at N38.22 trillion.

The majority of those loans, or 63.79 percent, are concessional and semi-concessional. The authorities’ recent and ongoing efforts to increase revenue will support debt sustainability even as the DMO continues to use best practices in public debt management.