States and Federal government of Nigeria debt stock data as at 31st December 2016 indicates that the country’s foreign and domestic debts stood as $11.41billion and N14.02 trillion respectively in 2016. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, of the $11.4 billion external debts the federal government account for $7.8 billion, while the 36 states and FCT external debt stock stood at amount to $3.567 billion. In the case of Domestic debt stock the federal government owes N11.05 trillion while states and the FCT owe N2.958 trillion.
A break down of Nigerian foreign debt showed that $7.99bn of the debt was multicultural; $198.25m was bilateral (AFD) and $3.22bn from Exim bank of China credited to the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN).
Total FGN debt accounted for 68.72 per cent of Nigeria’s total foreign debt while all states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) accounted for the remaining 31.28 per cent.
Similarly, total federal government of Nigeria debt accounted for 78.8 per cent of Nigeria’s total domestic debt while all States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) accounted for the 21.11 per cent of the balance.
A breakdown of the FGN domestic debt stock by instruments reflected that N7.56 trillionn or 68.41 per cent of the debt are in Federal Government Bonds; N3.28trillion or 29.64 per cent are in treasury bills and N215.99 million or 1.95 per cent are in treasury bonds.
Lagos State has the highest foreign debt profile among the thirty-six states and the FCT accounting for 38.70 per cent while Kaduna (6.25%), Edo(5.15%), Cross River (3.22%) and Ogun (2.90%) followed closely.
Similarly, Lagos State has the highest domestic debt profile among the thirty-six and the FCT accountingg for 10.54% while Delta (8.15%), Akwa Ibom (5.25%), FCT (5.16.5) and Osun (4.97%) followed in that order.