The World Bank has warned that Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African countries must initiate export diversification and fiscal reforms to address their rising debt challenges. This was contained in its just-released International Debt Report 2025.
The report, which highlights Sub-Saharan Africa as an outlier where debt levels and servicing costs climbed through 2024 amid subdued GDP, driven by countercyclical official financing rather than investment, notes that Nigeria and other countries in the region’s external debt burdens continued rising despite sluggish growth.
Nigeria’s public debt stock, which includes external and domestic debt, rose 2.01 per cent quarter-on-quarter to N152.39tn (US$99.65bn) in the second quarter of 2025 from N149.38 trillion (US$97.23bn) in Q1 2025.
Financial analysts have raised concerns over the country’s debt profile, as the government continue to borrow to fund the budget deficit.
The government plans to borrow N17.89tn in 2026, according to the 2026 budget framework obtained from the Budget Office of the Federation, having recently obtained approvals for N1.15tn domestic loans in late 2025 for the 2025 budget.
According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa diverged from other regions post-COVID, with external debt stocks growing year-on-year even as output lagged, per regional trends from 2015-2024.
