By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday said as at March 31, 2019, the total public debt portfolio of the federal and state governments stood at N24.95 trillion.
Breaking this down, the stats office said the total public debt showed that N7.86 trillion or 31.51 percent of the debt was external while N17.09 trillion or 68.49 percent of the total debt was domestic.
An analysis of the data by Business Post clearly stated that from the N17.09 trillion domestic debts owed by the country, 52.56 percent of it or N13.1 trillion is for the federal government alone, while the states and the FCT account for 15.92 percent or N3.97 trillion.
A further scrutiny showed that most of the domestic borrowings by the federal government was through the issuance of the FGN bonds, which accounted for 74.15 percent or N9.72 trillion, followed by the Nigerian Treasury Bills, which accounted for 20.22 percent or N2.65 trillion.
Promissory notes accounted for 2.80 percent or N366.85 billion of the debts owed local investors by federal government, while the FGN Sukuk bonds accounted for N200 billion or 1.53 percent.
In addition, the Nigerian Treasury bonds accounted for 1.15 percent or N150.99 billion of the total debts, Green Bonds accounted for N10.69 billion or 0.08 percent, while FGN Savings Bonds accounted for 0.07 percent or N9.71 billion.
In the report released by the stats office, of the N3.97 trillion total domestic debt, Lagos State accounted for 13.64 percent or N542.23 billion, while Yobe State has the least debt stock in this category with a contribution of 0.68 percent or N26.99 billion to the total domestic debt stock as at March 31, 2019.
