RipplesMetrics: Nigeria owes five countries $5.5 billion

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, shows that Nigeria has a public debt of N87.38 trillion of which N33.25 trillion is the total external debt.

It surpassed the projection of Debt Management Office’s Director-General, Patience Oniha, who had predicted the debt could hit N70 trillion, excluding N5 trillion in new borrowings and promissory notes of N2 trillion.

Breaking down the figures, the federal government’s external debts are N29.9 trillion while that of the 36 states and the FCT are N3.35 trillion as of the second quarter of 2023.

When converted, this is also $43.16 billion external debt as of Q2 2023.

RipplesMetrics looked into the composition of outstanding external debts on the DMO’s website. Findings showed that a larger share of the debts is multilateral and commercial outstandings of the country, representing 48.17 per cent and 36.19 per cent respectively.

Further checks showed that 12.79 per cent of the debts are bilateral outstandings owed to five countries totalling $5.52 billion. These countries are China, France, Japan, India and Germany.

Using CBN’s conversion rate of N778.6/$1, the amount would translate to about N4.30 trillion.

Breaking down the bilateral debts

From the DMO’s data, Nigeria’s outstanding debt to China’s Exim bank is the largest with $4.72 billion. France (Agence Francaise Development) follows it with $572.6 million and Germany (Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbua) with $135.26 million.

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Also, Nigeria owes Japan’s International Cooperation Agency $57.18 million and India’s Exim Bank $26.64 million.

Further findings by RipplesMetrics showed that within the first and second quarters of 2023, Nigeria only increased the debts owed to China by $390.21 million. For other countries, the debt was reduced by a range of 3 to 8 per cent while India maintained the same debt profile for both quarters.

When converted using the above CBN exchange rate, Nigeria would owe China N3.68 trillion, France with N445.83 billion, Japan with N44.52 billion, India with N20.74 billion and Germany with N105.31 billion.

Debt per Capita

RipplesMetrics went further to check Nigeria’s Debt per Capita which is calculated by dividing the country’s debts over the country’s population. Using the estimated 200 million as Nigeria’s population, this means each Nigerian owes the five countries combined about N21,483.

China, being the largest outstanding external creditor, would translate to Nigerians owing about N18,401.

Meanwhile, within six months of 2023, over N2.34 trillion has been spent by the Federal Government of Nigeria to service the country’s debt, which rose to N87.38 trillion at the end of June 2023.

According to the DMO report, the amount spent on debt service fell by 43.04 per cent quarter-on-quarter, as it slowed in the second quarter, the same month the fuel subsidy was removed by President Bola Tinubu.

RippleMetrics analyzed the domestic debt owed by states observing how Lagos State debt surpassed the total debts of the North West, North East and North Central.

By James Odunayo

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