The domestic debt owed by state governments and the Federal Capital Territory administration rose to N4.82tn in the first quarter of 2022.
The sub-national domestic debt stock was N4.46tn by the end of 2021, which means it rose by N380bn between January and March this year.
Lagos, Ogun and Rivers are the three most indebted states, according to the latest data from the Debt Management Office.
Lagos owed N780.48bn; Ogun, N241.98bn; and Rivers, N225.51bn.
However, according to the DMO, the domestic debt stock for Rivers State was as of September 30, 2021.
The states with the least domestic debt stock are Ebonyi, with N41.63bn; Jigawa, N42.73bn; and the Federal Capital Territory, N51.15bn.
The PUNCH recently reported that the DMO said Nigeria’s total public debt stock increased to N41.60tn in the first quarter of 2022 from N39.56tn as of December 2021, showing an increase of N2.04tn within a period of three months.
Reacting, the Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Dr Muda Yusuf, said the rising debt profile of the government raised serious sustainability concerns.
He said, “The government tends to argue that the condition was not a debt problem, but a revenue challenge; the truth is that debt becomes a problem if the revenue base is not strong enough to service the debt sustainably.
“It invariably becomes a debt problem and possibly a debt crisis. The government’s actual revenue can hardly cover the recurrent budget, which implies that the entire capital budget and part of the recurrent expenditure are being funded from borrowing. This is surely not sustainable.”
