Nigeria: External Borrowing, Debt Sustainability and Poverty Link – Statistical Report (2023-2025)
By Chike Moronu
Revised and fact-checked edition | Compiled October 2026 | Sources: DMO (Dec 2025 debt reports), CBN, NBS, World Bank Nigeria Development Update (Oct 2025 and Apr 2026), IMF 2026 Article IV, Fitch. Items marked [unverified] could not be matched to a primary source and should be checked before publication.
1. Executive Summary
Nigeria's total public debt stood at N159.28 trillion (US$110.97bn) at end-December 2025, up 10.1% from N144.67tn in December 2024: N84.85tn domestic (53.27%) and N74.43tn external (46.73%). External debt rose from $45.78bn to $51.86bn (+13.3%). On headline solvency metrics debt is moderate: the IMF puts debt-to-GDP at 36.1% in 2025 (39.3% in 2024) and rates debt as sustainable with moderate distress risk. The pressure point is cash flow: external debt service reached $5.21bn in 2025 (+11.9%), equal to 72.1% of Nigeria's international payments (62.6% in 2024), and the IMF estimates interest alone took 53.2% of federal revenue in 2025. Meanwhile the World Bank's April 2026 update puts poverty at 56% (2023), 61% (2024) and 63% (2025), about 140 million people, even though headline inflation fell from 34.80% to 15.15% (note: different CPI base years, see Section 7).
2. External Debt Stock and Growth (DMO)
|
Period |
Total public debt |
External debt (N) |
External debt ($) |
|
Dec 2024 |
N144.67tn ($94.23bn) |
N70.29tn |
$45.78bn |
|
Q1 2025 |
N149.39tn |
N70.63tn |
n/a [unverified] |
|
Sept 2025 |
N153.29tn |
N71.48tn |
$48.46bn |
|
Dec 2025 |
N159.28tn ($110.97bn) |
N74.43tn |
$51.86bn |
The Federal Government owes $46.17bn (89%) of external debt and states plus FCT $5.68bn. Naira conversion used the CBN rate of N1,435.26/$ at 31 Dec 2025. External debt was $51.90bn at March 2026 (flat, +0.09%), with the commercial share edging up to 41.3%.
3. Debt Sustainability
Q1 2025 debt of N149.39tn against rebased GDP of N379.17tn gives 39.4%. Later and more authoritative: the IMF's 2026 Article IV puts debt-to-GDP at 36.1% for 2025, down from 39.3% in 2024, and projects it near 35% in 2026. This is below the Federal Government's own 40% ceiling. The 55% figure often quoted is best described as the IMF/World Bank debt-sustainability benchmark for countries of medium debt-carrying capacity (present-value basis), not a binding World Bank limit, and the 60% DMO figure should be cited to its legal or policy source [unverified]. Debt-to-GDP is not the binding constraint: revenue is only about 4.9% of GDP at federal level (IMF), so the IMF says the real challenge is interest-to-revenue, estimated at 53.2% in 2025 and 53.7% in 2026, versus 40.8% in 2024. The IMF projects public external debt rising from $51.9bn (2025) to $72.6bn (2027), with interest on public debt rising from about $2bn to $3bn.
4. External Creditor Breakdown, 31 Dec 2025 (DMO)
|
Creditor group |
Amount |
Share |
Terms / note |
|
Multilateral (total) |
$23.85bn |
45.99% |
Mostly concessional |
|
– World Bank Group |
$19.89bn |
38.36% |
|
|
IDA |
$18.51bn |
35.7% |
Concessional, long tenor |
|
IBRD |
$1.38bn |
2.7% |
Near-market |
|
– AfDB Group |
$3.25bn |
6.3% |
AfDB $2.18bn + ADF $1.02bn + AGTF $0.06bn |
|
– Other (IsDB, IFAD, EDF, BADEA) |
$0.71bn |
1.4% |
|
|
Commercial (total) |
$21.28bn |
41.04% |
Market-priced |
|
– Eurobonds |
$18.55bn |
35.77% |
Coupons about 7-10%+ (verify per issue) [unverified] |
|
– Syndicated project loans |
$2.51bn |
4.84% |
Floating, SOFR-based (LIBOR no longer exists) |
|
– Other banks |
$0.22bn |
0.4% |
Deutsche, UniCredit, StanChart |
|
Bilateral (total) |
$6.72bn |
12.97% |
Government-to-government |
|
– China (Exim $5.06bn + CDB $0.52bn) |
$5.58bn |
10.8% |
Exim alone is 9.8% |
|
– France, Germany, Japan, India |
$1.14bn |
2.2% |
France (AFD) $0.91bn |
|
Total |
$51.86bn |
100% |
IDA debt rose from about $16.56bn to $18.51bn in 2025 (+11.7%) [prior-year base not re-checked]. Note the earlier draft overstated Eurobonds (~$15bn / 30%) and commercial debt (~$23bn / 44%) and double-counted so that shares summed above 100%.
5. Cost of Servicing – The Pressure Point
|
Indicator |
2024 |
2025 |
Source |
|
External debt service |
$4.66bn |
$5.21bn (+11.9%, +$552m) |
CBN |
|
Total international payments |
$7.44bn |
$7.22bn (-2.9%) |
CBN |
|
Debt service as share of international payments |
62.6% |
72.1% |
CBN |
|
External service per DMO (different basis) |
– |
$5.15bn |
DMO |
|
– Eurobond service |
– |
$2.49bn (about 48% of DMO total) |
DMO |
|
– IMF repayments |
– |
$0.82bn (about 16%) |
DMO |
|
– IDA payments |
– |
$0.77bn (about 15%) |
DMO |
|
Q4 2025 external service |
– |
$1.8bn, of which commercial $1.39bn (Eurobonds $1.38bn); IDA $193m; AfDB $94m |
DMO |
|
Interest as share of federal revenue |
40.8% |
53.2% (2026p: 53.7%) |
IMF |
|
States' foreign debt service |
N362.08bn |
N455.38bn (+25.8%) |
[unverified] |
Fitch had projected 2025 external government service of $5.2bn, which includes $4.5bn of amortisation (that figure already contains a $1.1bn Eurobond repayment due November 2025), easing to $3.5bn in 2026. The earlier draft read these as additive. Nigeria raised $2.2bn in Eurobonds in December 2024 and $2.53bn in November 2025. The earlier all-debt service totals (N15.81tn, N7.15tn, N7.39tn) were ambiguous and are removed pending a clear source.
6. What Was Borrowed For?
Official justifications: infrastructure (power, rail, roads, health, education, agriculture), financing the budget deficit through Eurobonds, syndicated and bridge facilities and a first sovereign sukuk, and refinancing costlier debt. Multilateral IDA funds have supported power-sector recovery, early childhood development and cash transfers, while syndicated loans fund large infrastructure. Eurobond proceeds have largely refinanced maturing bonds rather than financed new assets (an analytical judgement, supported by 2025 Eurobond repayments of about $2.5bn against $2.53bn raised in November 2025). Reports of stalled approved projects as of mid-2025 should be cited to a specific source [unverified].
7. Why Poverty Keeps Rising
Verified: World Bank (April 2026): poverty at the national line 56% (2023), 61% (2024), 63% (2025), about 140 million people; the Bank expects a gradual decline from 2026. It cites lagging agriculture, where over half of vulnerable people work, and household incomes that have not recovered lost purchasing power. Headline inflation: 34.80% (Dec 2024) to 15.15% (Dec 2025); food inflation 39.84% to 10.84%. Caveat: NBS rebased the CPI (2024=100) in 2025, so these two readings are on different bases and NBS itself flagged a rebasing effect in the December print. The naira moved from about N460/$ before mid-2023 to N1,435.26/$ at end-2025.
Context the original omitted: the World Bank's October 2025 update found that three-quarters of the rise in poverty between 2019 (40%) and 2025 occurred before 2023, with average consumption falling 6.7% over 2019-2023. Poverty is therefore not mainly a product of recent borrowing. The argument that debt service crowds out capital spending is supported by the interest-to-revenue data above, but the link from external borrowing to poverty is an interpretation, not something these statistics establish.
Not verified (check or remove): 7 million additional poor in 2025; GDP growth of 3.38% (2024), 3.87% (2025) and 4.1-4.2% (2026; the IMF itself projects 4.1% for 2026) and the per-capita growth figure derived from them; 75.5% rural poverty; Gini 33.9; price levels 60-70% above 2023; monthly revenue rising from N711bn to N3.635tn.
8. Conclusion
Nigeria has not breached standard solvency thresholds: debt-to-GDP is about 36-39% depending on vintage. The strain is liquidity and revenue. Multilateral creditors hold 46% of external debt, yet the commercial 41% (Eurobonds alone 35.8%) generates about half of external service (Eurobonds 48% in 2025), and IMF and IDA repayments together add roughly another 30%. With interest absorbing over half of federal revenue and external service taking 72% of international payments, fiscal space for pro-poor and capital spending is constrained. Whether borrowing raises real incomes depends on what it finances; until it does, sustainable-looking ratios can coexist with about 140 million Nigerians in poverty.
Sources: DMO, Nigeria's Total Public Debt and External Debt Stock as at 31 Dec 2025 (provisional); CBN international payments data; NBS CPI December 2025; World Bank Nigeria Development Update (Oct 2025, Apr 2026); IMF 2026 Article IV (published 9 June 2026); Fitch Ratings 2025; Nairametrics and press analysis of DMO data.
