Nigeria’s total public debt profile surged to N144.67 trillion ($94.23 billion) as of December 31, 2024, representing a 48.58% increase over the N97.34 trillion ($108.23 billion) debt stock recorded by the end of December 2023.
The Debt Management Office (DMO), which gave these figures in its latest report disclosed that when analyzed on a quarter-on-quarter basis, the Q4 2024 debt represented a 1.65% increase from the N142.32 trillion ($88.89 billion) recorded at the end of Q3 last year.
According to the report, as of December 31 2024, Nigeria’s external debt increased by 83.89% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) from N38.22 trillion ($42.50 billion) in December 2023 to N70.29 trillion ($45.78 billion).
The rising debt stock was due to new external borrowings and the depreciating exchange rate of the the local currency – Naira – thereby triggering an increase in USD-denominated debt.
- Advertisement -
Similarly, the domestic debt also rose by 25.77% Y-o-Y from N59.12 trillion ($65.73 billion) at the end of December 2023 to N74.38 trillion ($48.44 billion) in December 2024.
A further analysis of the report based on borrowings by the tiers of government reflected that the Federal Government’s domestic debt component significantly rose from N53.26 trillion in December 2023 to N70.41 trillion in December last year, reflecting a 32.19% increase Y-o-Y .
Conversely, the domestic debt of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) significantly declined from N5.86 trillion as of the end of December 2023 to N3.97 trillion by December 2024, representing a decline of 32.27% Y-o-Y.
This reduction in the subnational governments’ debt may partly be attributed to fiscal prudence and improvements in their Internally Generated Revenues in recent years.
As expected, analysts have continued to express serious concerns about Nigeria’s rising public debt profile and the negative implications for the country’s fiscal system stability and sustainable development.
For instance, some have cautioned that the rising external debt highlighted Nigeria’s vulnerability to exchange rate fluctuations amid current developments in the global economic space, especially with the President Donald Trump’s tariffs on exports to the United States.
