By John Ikani
Every Nigerian currently owes about N214,454 in terms of debt per capita, as the country’s total public debt hit N45.25 trillion at the end of August 2022, analysis of Nigeria’s latest total public debt stock has shown.
Debt per capita is calculated as the total public debt of a country divided by the country’s population. Nigeria’s population is estimated to be 211 million, according to World Bank data.
Data released by the Debt Management Office (DMO) during the weekend, shows that Africa’s biggest economy total debt rose by about N4 trillion in the past five months to take the portfolio to N45.25 trillion.
A breakdown of the total debt stocks hinged the increase in external debts to currency depreciation from N16.62 trillion in first quarter to N16.93 trillion as at the end of last month.
The domestic debts, because of new issuances, rose from N24.987 trillion in first quarter to N28.322 trillion by the end of August.
Earlier, the DMO had revealed that the national debt stocks had risen to N41.6 trillion by the end of the first quarter ended March 31, 2022.
The debt stock, which stood at N32.92 trillion by December 2020, rose to N39.556 trillion by December 2021 and rose further to N41.6 trillion by the end of first quarter of 2022.
What you should know
Although Nigeria’s rising debt profile was a subject of in the past decade, it became very worrisome with reports that the nation spent about 96 per cent of its total revenue on servicing debt obligations in 2021.
While experts in the public and private sectors’ continue to express concerns over the country’s fiscal sustainability amidst dwindling national revenue, the Director-General of DMO, Ms. Patience Oniha, said the debt profile would continue to rise as long as the country cannot generate enough revenue to fund its annual budget.
