Debt by president

Debt by president

Key numbers

$103B
External debt (peak, end-2022)
Highest in Nigerian history. Up from $19.5B in 2007. 2023 closed at $102.5B.
36.3%
Gov debt as % of GDP, 2023
IMF estimate. Up from 5.2% post-Paris Club reset.
+$58B
Added under Buhari
2015 ($45B) → 2022 ($103B). +129% in 7 years.
$18B
Written off, 2005
Paris Club settlement under Obasanjo.
$9.7B
Debt service paid, 2023
4× the $2.4B paid in 2014. World Bank data.
about 96%
Of revenue to debt service, 2022
DMO + Federal Ministry of Finance; analyzed by BudgIT. Not in World Bank.

Year by year

Bar chart
External debt stocks (current US$ billion). Bars are colored by the administration in office that year.

Full data

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Year ▲ President External debt ($B) Long-term ($B) Short-term ($B) Debt service ($B) Service / exports (%) Gov debt / GDP (%) GDP ($B)

Events

2005
Paris Club debt relief
Nigeria settled $30B in arrears with the Paris Club. $18B was written off; external debt fell from $46B (2004) to $17.5B (2006). Obasanjo's signature fiscal achievement.
2008 to 2009
Global financial crisis
Nigeria weathered the crisis with low debt (about 5% of GDP) and significant FX reserves. Yar'Adua era, minimal new borrowing.
2014
GDP rebasing
Nigeria's GDP nearly doubled overnight after methodology update. Made debt ratios look smaller, but the underlying naira-amount kept climbing.
2016
Oil crash + recession
Oil prices collapsed to $44/barrel. First Nigerian recession in 25 years. Buhari government turned to aggressive external borrowing, Eurobonds, China loans.
2020
COVID-19 fiscal response
Emergency IMF + multilateral borrowing. External debt jumped from $81B (2019) to $88B. Gov debt-to-GDP crossed 25% for the first time since 2002.
2022
The 96% number
Federal government spent about 96% of revenue servicing debt, per DMO and Federal Ministry of Finance data analyzed by BudgIT. Highest ratio in modern Nigerian history.
2023
Fuel subsidy removal + naira float
Tinubu's first-day policies aimed at fiscal repair. External debt steady at $103B, but the naira's 40%+ devaluation reshaped the local-currency value of dollar debt.

Primary sources

What's in the table

External debt: total stock owed to foreign creditors, World Bank IDS. Debt service: actual payments (principal + interest) made each year. Government debt / GDP: IMF WEO estimate of general government gross debt, includes federal, sub-national, and CBN ways-and-means.

What's missing

The headline "96% of revenue → debt service" is sourced from the DMO and Federal Ministry of Finance (analyzed by BudgIT). The World Bank does not publish Nigerian general-government revenue. Domestic-vs-external composition by quarter is only in DMO's PDF reports and not yet integrated here.

Limitations

Pre-1999 data comes from the late military era and may be revised. The 2014 GDP rebase makes pre-2014 debt-to-GDP ratios appear higher than they would under current methodology. All USD figures are nominal (current-year prices), not inflation-adjusted.