By Ngozi Onyeakusi—- In the just concluded week, total debt figure released by the Debt Management Office (DMO) showed that Nigeria’s total public debt stock surged by 20.12% to N32.92 trillion as at December 2020 (from N27.40 trillion as at December 2019). The increase in the country’s total debt stock was chiefly due to a sharp rise in external debt by 40.82% to N12.71 trillion (or USD33.35 billion at N381.00/USD) as at December 2020 from N9.02 trillion (or USD27.68 billion at N326.00/USD) in December 2019 – Nigeria received USD3.54 billion worth of loan from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and additional loan of N1.43 billion from International Development Association (IDA) within the period under review.

With the high pace at which the country amasses debt, especially foreign debt, without a corresponding healthy growth in revenue, it may run into difficulty servicing its foreign debt amid its over-reliance on crude oil revenue. Hence, given the largely mono-export proceeds which has continued to put pressure on the Naira against the USD – and partly accounting for the rising inflation –, we expect interest rates to be relatively high this year.