2023 and the Familiar Song

By Olusegun Adeniyi

Last week, Dr Doyin Salami, who chairs President Buhari’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC), lamented that the debt service-to-revenue ratio stood at 97.7 per cent (January to May 2021).

From information readily available at the Debt Management Office (DMO), we are currently indebted to several multilateral institutions.

They include International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD);
International Development Association (IDA);
International Monetary Fund (IMF);
African Development Bank (AfDB);
African Development Fund (ADF);
Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF);
European Investment Bank (EIB);
European Development Fund (EDF);
Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA);
Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

The Bilateral creditors are Exim Bank of China; Agence Française de Développement of France,
Japan International Cooperation Agency, Kreditanstait Fur Wiederaufbua of Germany, and Exim Bank of India.

We need a serious conversation about our debts.
As at the time President Olusegun Obasanjo took office in 1999 under the current democratic dispensation, Nigeria’s total outstanding debt was $28.04 billion comprising $20.51 billion to Paris Club, $2.04 billion to London Club, $3.93 to multilateral institutions and $1.49 in promissory notes.

By the end of 2004 when Obasanjo subscribed to the Debt-Buy-Back proposition, Nigeria had a debt portfolio of $35.94 billion, of which the Paris Club alone accounted for $30.85 billion.

Following Nigeria’s exit from the Paris Club in 2005, the Debt Portfolio became $20.48 billion.

By the time we exited the London Club in 2006, Nigeria’s total debt had plummeted to $3.54 billion.

From then there were marginal annual increases.
It was $3.65 billion in 2007,
$3.72 billion in 2008,
$3.95 in 2009,
$4.58 billion in 2010,
$5.67 billion in 2011,
$6.5 billion in 2012,
$8.8 billion in 2013,
$9.7 billion in 2014 and
$10.72 billion in 2015.

While the increase to $11.41 billion in the first year of the Buhari administration (2016) followed the same pattern, the debt portfolio jumped to $18.91 billion a year later in 2017.

By 2018, the hike was more astronomical: $25.27 billion.

It increased to $27.68 in 2019 and by December last year (2020), Nigeria had amassed a total debt of $33.35 billion!

• Olusegun Adeniyi
  23 September 2021