The Debt Management Office (DMO) has reported that Nigeria’s overall domestic borrowing rose to N81.81 trillion, equivalent to $55.47 billion, while external obligations stood at N71.47 trillion, or $48.46 billion, raising the nation’s public debt to N153.28 trillion as of the end of third quarter in year 2025
As expected, data on the public debt stock provided by the Office indicated that the Federal Government accounted for the biggest chunk of local debt liabilities, raising its debt obligations to N77.81 trillion at the close of the quarter under review, up from N76.58 trillion it owed in the preceding quarter.
Also, the state governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) also recorded higher domestic borrowings from N3.96 trillion at the end of Q2, 2025 to N4 trillion by the end of September 2025.
The surging debt stock of the three tiers of government is a reflection of sustained quest for new borrowings for what they linked to infrastructure projects.
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Despite increasing revenues being shared monthly by the federal, state and local governments over the past few years following the fuel subsidy removal and other tax reform measures of the Federal Government, the yearly budget deficits of the governments continued to widen with the attendant burden of closing the gaps being placed on ordinary Nigerians.
For instance, the proposed 2026 budget of the Federal Government is already reflected a minimum deficit of N23.85 trillion, representing 4.28 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
Over the past years of the worrisome debt stocks of the tiers of government, finance and economic experts have continued to express serious concerns about the debt to GDP ratio but the fiscal authorities, especially the DMO has always defended the borrowings, claiming that they remained within the global benchmark.
For instance in January 2025, the Office swiftly rejected a widely circulated figures that Nigeria’s total public debt had skyrocketed from N21 trillion to N142 trillion during President Bola Tinubu’s administration, arguing that when the President assumed office, the nation’s entire debt stock stood at N87 trillion, and not the N21 trillion figure wrongly being circulated in that report.
