Debt servicing by the federal government cost the country a total of N11.679 trillion between 2015 and 2020.
In the same period, N8.31trillion was expended on capital/development expenditure.
This is according to the “Analysis of the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper,” presented in Abuja by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).
It showed that between 2015 and 2020, Nigeria’s public debt increased by 161 per cent, indicating a yearly average increase of 37.74 per cent.
A breakdown of the figure revealed that in 2015 and 2016, N953.620 billion and N1.475 trillion, respectively, were spent on debt service, while N1.841 trillion and N2.203 trillion went into same line item in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
In 2019 and 2020, the sums of N2.254 trillion and N2.951 trillion went into debt service.
The N11.679,845,205, 997 five-year debt service profile (2015-2020) also translated to a yearly average of N1.386 trillion, the paper indicated.
Lead Director of CSJ, Eze Onyekpere, stated that Nigeria’s debt had also been increasing in double digits year-after-year since 2015, with the highest increase recorded between 2015 and 2016.
Citing the Debt Management Office (DMO) statistics, Onyekpere observed that public debt stock stood at N12,603 trillion in 2015, N17.360 trillion in 2016, and N21.725 trillion in 2017 while in 2018, 2019 and 2020, it was N24.387 trillion, N27.401 trillion, and N32.915 trillion, respectively.
He pointed out that the debt service figures provided the factual background to the presentation of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF’s) position on consolidated debt.
