Lagos, Rivers and Akwa Ibom have emerged as the three most indebted in the overall domestic debt owed by state governments and the Federal Capital Territory, as data collated from the Debt Management Office revealed the sub-national debt to have risen to N4.19tn at the end of Q3 in 2020.
The DMO data showed that sub-national governments’ domestic debts witnessed an increase by N484.24m in the third quarter of 2020, while that of the Federal Government rose by N390bn to N15.85tn.
Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Cross River were the top five debtors. They have a combined domestic debt stock of about N1.40tn.
Lagos State owes N493.32 tn which accounts for 11.77 per cent of sub-national governments’ total domestic debt, while Rivers has a domestic debt stock of N266.94bn, representing 6.37 per cent of the country’s sub-national domestic debt stock.
The domestic debt of both Akwa Ibom and Delta stood at N239.21bn and N235.86bn respectively. That of Akwa Ibom represents 5.71 per cent of the total domestic debts, while that of Delta accounts for 5.63 per cent of the total sub-national domestic debt.
Cross River on the other hand has a domestic debt stock of N164.10bn, which represents 3.92 per cent of the sub-national domestic debt stock.
Imo ( N158.17bn), Ogun ( N150.09bn), Bayelsa ( N147.89bn), Osun ( N134.89bn), Benue (N128.50bn), Plateau (N127.01bn), Taraba (N122.75bn), Kano (N116.99bn), Adamawa (N116.89bn) and Oyo (N99.94bn) are some of the other states with high domestic debts.
The states with the least domestic debt stocks include Yobe, with a debt of N29.23bn; Jigawa, N36.04bn; Ebonyi, N41.27bn; Katsina, N44.42bn; and Sokoto, N48.09bn.
Others are Anambra (N59.01bn), Nasarawa (N61.29bn), Enugu (N62.44bn), Kwara (N63.37bn), and Niger (N65.60bn).
Meanwhile, the DMO had on Thursday disclosed that the nation’s total public debt stock rose by N1.21tn in Q3 2020 to N32.22tn.
Nelson Okoh
