With the high level of loans collected by the Nigerian Government, it is not completely out of place that Lagos State, which is the commercial centre and metropolitan city of Nigeria, currently stands as the state with the highest foreign debt in the country, with its foreign debt at 1.45 billion dollars. The record titled: ‘States, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Federal Governments’ External Debt Stock as at June 30, 2018,’ was released by the Debt Management Office (DMO), on Wednesday in Abuja, along with the details of other states’ external debts. The record also revealed that the external debt stock of the entire nation is at 22 billion dollars with the Federal Government incurring 17.8 billion dollars, while the states and the FCT owing 4.28 billion dollars.
The Debt Management Office (DMO) through its Director-General, Ms Patience Oniha, stated at a media conference on August 14, that the nation’s public debt stock increased marginally by 3.01 per cent from that of December 2017 as at the 30th of June 2018. With the ratio between domestic and external debt at 70 to 30 compared to 73 to 27 in December 2017, Ms Ohia explained that a target ratio of 60 to 40 is important to ensure that the nation is not 100 per cent in external debt and also raising money domestically would be easier.
The details of the foreign debts of other states are as follows:
- Edo- 279 million dollars
- Kaduna- 232.9 million dollars
- Cross River- 193.7 million dollars
- Bauchi- 134.9 million dollars
- Enugu 127.9 million dollars
- Anambra- 107.4 million dollars
- Oyo- 106.34 million dollars
- Ogun- 105.3 million dollars
- Osun- 101.5 million dollars
- Abia- 100.2 million dollars
- Ekiti- 97.9 million dollars
- Ondo- 81.4 million dollars
- Rivers- 79.5 million dollars
- Ebonyi- 67.9 million dollars
- Kano- 65 million dollars
- Katsina- 64.7 million dollars
- Delta- 63.8 million dollars
- Imo- 61.2 million dollars
- Nassarawa- 61.4 million dollars
- Adamawa- 57.8 million dollars
- Niger- 55.7 million dollars
- Bayelsa- 57.2 million dollars
- Akwa Ibom- 48.3 million dollars
- Kebbi- 46.7 million dollars
- Kwara- 49.8 million dollars
- Sokoto- 40.2 million dollars
- Taraba- 22.1 million dollars
- Borno- 22.2 million dollars
- Yobe- 28.4 million dollars
- Plateau- 29.6 million dollars
- Kogi- 32.37 million dollars
- Jigawa- 32.80 million dollars
- FCT- 32.83 million dollars
- Zamfara- 34.2 million dollars
- Benue- 34.7 million dollars
- Gombe- 38.5 million dollars
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