The federal government spent N351.98billion to service domestic debts between October and December, 2020, as a total of $243.88 million was expended in servicing external loans between January and December last year.

According to the latest data by the Debt Management Office (DMO), the majority of the debt servicing cost at the domestic market went to federal government bonds. A total of N239.455billion had been spent servicing the FGN Bond obligations between October and December last year.

Also, N65.171billion had been spent servicing the government obligations through the Nigeria Treasury Bills (NTB) while N331.428 million was expended on paying yields on the federal government Savings Bond.

Meanwhile, $243.882 million had been spent servicing Nigeria’s debt obligation outside the country. According to data released yesterday by the DMO, 45 per cent of the figure went to servicing the debt owed to multilateral organisations while commercial debt took up 41 per cent of the total debt servicing amount.

The cost of servicing debts owed to bilateral lenders took up 14 per cent of the total figure. A total of $108.66 million had been paid to service debt with multilateral agencies. Of this figure, $78.19million had gone to the International Development Association while $18.27 was paid to African Development Bank.

Total cost of servicing the 11 Eurobond and one Diaspora Bond raised by the country between January and December last year stood at $100.507million, while $34.676 million had been expended on servicing obligations with bilateral lenders.

Nigeria’s total public debt had risen by 2.1 per cent or N693 billion between September and December last year as public debt stock stood as at December 31, 2020 stood at N32.915 trillion according to the DMO. As at September 30, 2020, the total public debt of the country was N32.222 trillion.

– Leadership