Nigeria’s debt service-to-revenue ratio is projected to rise to 71.7 per cent by 2030, exceeding the 50 per cent threshold recommended by the Debt Management Office (DMO).
The projection is contained in the DMO’s 2024 Debt Sustainability Analysis report released on Monday, which warned that debt servicing would consume an increasing proportion of government revenue despite an expected decline in the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio.
This is coming amidst mounting public debt estimated to hit over N200 trillion by the year end while domestic debt servicing in the first six months of 2026 already amounted to 61.4 per cent of the N8.61 trillion spent in the whole of 2025.
It would be recalled that Nigeria spent N8.61 trillion servicing its domestic debt in 2025, while the Federal Government incurred another N5.28 trillion in domestic debt-service expenditure in the first six months of 2026, highlighting the continuing pressure of borrowing costs on public finances.
According to the report, the ratio is expected to fall from 60.6 per cent in 2024 to 44.9 per cent in 2025 before rising above the recommended threshold to 51 per cent in 2026.
