By

Waheed AlabedeDate :03/26/2015

Nigeria’s Foreign Debt Stock Under Seven Presidents.

A Tale of Seven Debtors : 1984 to 2013

Data used in this report was retrieved from the World bank foreign debt record.

Data Sources

The frenzy for foreign loan is not new. On May 18 of 1960,the New York Times

reported that Nigeria successfully arranged a loan of £12 million from Britain.

Meant for the running of the new infant nation.

Nigeria continuously dug the hole of debt deeper with each successive government.

History

Addition to External Debt.

Figures in parentheses indicates loan was paid by the government.

During Buhari’s 20 months in office, Nigeria’s debt increased by about $872 million. Although Buhari was overthrown in August, the figures used to calculate the debt he incurred is up to December 1985.

Eight years of IBB added a whopping $12 billion to the national debt.

Debt Stock declined under Abacha by about $422 million.

What they did… Continue

Obasanjo/Atiku’s eight years in power reduces the

national debt by about $26.7 billion. He inherited about $30billion from the previous administrations(s). He offset most of the loan with the debt forgiveness program and paid the rest off.

During Yaradua/Jonathan’s reign they started piling up the debt again, Yaradua added $3 billion in 2 years and 11 months. He was active as a president for only 2 years and 3 months.

Jonathan added $7 billion in 4 years, this figure does not include the 2014 figure and the recent loan of $2 that was just borrowed to augment the budget.

What they did… Continue

The most Prolific debtor is?

Figures in parentheses indicates loan was paid by the government.

The most prolific borrower in the history of

Nigeria is President Goodluck Jonathan. If reelected and he continues borrowing at this rate, by the time he leaves office in 2019 he would have added $15.6 billion to the national debt.

If there is no improvement to crude oil prices, then we should expect the borrowing to get worst. They already borrowed $2 billion to augment the budget in the first 3 months of 2015.

The Answer

External debt and Crude Oil Prices

Nigeria experienced a historically higher oil

prices from 2007 through 2013. The same period also ushered in an era of

excessive borrowing. The more money that the government realizes

from the sale of crude oil, the more it borrows. Don’t saddle the future generation with this

problem!

Don’t let this continue!