Governors call for urgent action to curtail Nigeria’s rising debt

The governors of some states in Nigeria have called for a quick intervention to curtail the nation’s rising debt profile. 

The Debt Management Office (DMO) had said Nigeria’s total public debt reached N46.25 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022. 

The state leaders, speaking on Wednesday at the recent 2023 induction programme organised by the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), said Nigeria cannot perpetually borrow.

The governors were responding to the warnings by Ngozi Okonjo–Iweala, director- general of World Trade Organisation (WTO), that they should monitor their debt profiles, and keep careful control of expenditures. 

Okonjo-Iweala had argued that it had become imperative for governors to focus on debt management because the country has challenges on the fiscal, debt, and monetary policy fronts. 

Expressing his view on the issue, Bala Mohammed, governor of Bauchi state, bemoaned the nation’s debt service costs, which “accounted for 95 percent of its income”. 

He warned that without action, “the nation would collapse”. 

“We are going to go under unless we do something inward to really correct our own perception, our own notions and our own approaches to the management of the economy of the country,” Mohammed said.

“It is a monolithic economy. And yet, even where we are getting money, we have taken so much up front, the federation has to be looked at as a structure because states have to have a say in the management of the economy.” 

Caleb Mutfwang, the Plateau governor-elect, corroborating Mohammed’s stance on the need to reverse the country’s debt situation, said the federal and state governments must collaborate in order to come up with the right policies to reverse the situation.

He said the country must look for ways and means of creating wealth as a nation, so that more Nigerians would come out of poverty.

“This is both a national and sub-national issue. We at the sub-national level will be collaborating with the federal government, as members of the National Economic Council, to come up with the right policies so that we will be able to reverse our debt situation,” he said. 

“And of course, reversing debt is not rocket science, you have to create wealth, you have to add more money to be able to pay your debts. So, we must look at ways and means of creating wealth as a nation. 

On his part, Dikko Radda, the Katsina state governor-elect, said as soon as he is sworn-in, there would be a comprehensive assessment of the state’s debt profile with a view to restructuring it, in order to meet the obligations for the people of the state.

“There is nothing wrong in borrowing to the develop, but it is wrong to borrow to spend uselessly,” he said.