The World Bank international debt report 2022 has provided deeper insights into how Nigeria’s total external debt stock ballooned from just $18billion in 2010 to a staggering $70 billion in 2020.
The report breaks down the relevant data on Nigeria’s total external debt stock into summary of external debt data by debtor type, external debt stock by creditor type, net financial inflows as well as debt ratios.
The 194-page report which has a whole page on Nigeria puts the country’s total external debt stock at $18.822bn in 2010 before almost doubling to $35.716bn in 2016 and then rising quickly to $45.722bn in 2017.
By 2018, the total external debt stock of Nigeria had climbed to $54.184, $60.006 in 2019 and then $70.318 the following year.
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Of the external debt stock in 2020, a total of $5.958 is classified as “use of IMF credit” and $11.415 accounted by debt owed the World Bank itself while the total long-term external debt was put at $64.370.
In 2020, the amount spent on interest payment for the long-term external loan was $1.845bn according to the World Bank.
A further analysis of the World Bank data showed that external debt stocks now represent 169 per cent of Nigeria’s total exports with debt servicing surging to 17 per cent of total exports in 2020.
Similarly, by 2020, the ratio of reserves to the country’s external debt stocks stood at 52 per cent.
