The devaluation of the Nigerian naira has resulted in a significant upswing in the country’s external debt, escalating by N28 trillion, according to recent debt profile data from the Debt Management Office. As of the end of the third quarter of 2023, Nigeria’s total debt stood at N87.38 trillion, with external debt comprising N31.98 trillion ($41.5 billion). This external debt encompasses loans from various sources, including financial agencies, Eurobonds, syndicated loans, and bilateral loans from entities such as the Exim Bank of China and the Agence Francaise Development.<\/p>\n
The cumulative external debt of $41.5 billion (N31.98 trillion) as of September 30, 2023, was computed using the Central Bank of Nigeria’s official exchange rate of $1 to N768.76. However, the continuous devaluation of the naira over the last six months, witnessing a substantial decline of 80.58% from 891\/$ to 1,609\/$ by the end of February 2024, has significantly contributed to a noteworthy surge in Nigeria’s external debt. This naira depreciation indicates a more than 109% increase in external debt between the last published debt stock information and February 2024.<\/p>\n
The escalation in external debt transpires as the Federal Government pursues additional funding through borrowing, including ongoing discussions with the World Bank for a $1.5 billion budget support loan. Despite warnings from experts and global lenders cautioning against excessive reliance on debt, Nigeria persists in its borrowing strategy. Projections highlight potential challenges, with the International Monetary Fund predicting that the government may allocate nearly 100% of its revenue to debt servicing by 2026. The World Bank underscores that Nigeria’s seemingly sustainable debt is “vulnerable and costly,” while the Nigerian Economic Summit Group advises against creating a debt burden for future governments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The devaluation of the Nigerian naira has resulted in a significant upswing in the country’s external debt, escalating by N28 trillion, according to recent debt profile data from the Debt Management Office. As of the end of the third quarter of 2023, Nigeria’s total debt stood at N87.38 trillion, with external debt comprising N31.98 trillion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":21790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21789"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21803,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21789\/revisions\/21803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}