A financial expert, Okechukwu Unegbu, has urged the media and other stakeholders to always get the right information about Nigeria’s debt profile before disseminating it.

Mr Unegbu, a past president of the Chattered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria ( CIBN), said this in an interview on Friday in Abuja.

According to Mr Unegbu, spreading false information about the debt situation and the economy, in general, can lead to negative reactions from global rating agencies and make the economy vulnerable.

He said the Debt Management Office (DMO) was saddled with centrally coordinating the management of Nigeria’s debt.

“Any enquiry about the Nigerian debt situation should be directed to the DMO, which is statutorily responsible for managing the country’s debt.

“Sometimes, a visit to the website of the DMO is all that is needed to get all required information about the Nigerian debt situation,” he said.

Mr Unegbu said there was a need to protect the financial market and the economy from the ripple effects of misinformation and fake news.

Nigeria’s total public debt stock hit N87.91 trillion ($114.35 billion) in Sept. 2023, according to the latest figures from the DMO.

The DMO said the amount represented the domestic and external debts of the federal government, the 36 state governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The N87.91 trillion total debt stock represents a marginal increase of 0.61 per cent compared to the June figure of N87.38 trillion.

The DMO said this trend was explained by the decrease in external debt from 43.16 billion dollars as of June 30, 2023, to $41.59 billion as of September 30, 2023.

It said there was also a relatively moderate increase of N1.80 trillion in the domestic debt.

“External debt decreased due to a redemption of 500 million dollars Eurobond.

“It also decreased due to the payment of $413.959 million as the first principal repayment of the N3.4 billion dollars loan obtained from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2020 during COVID-19,” it said.

It said servicing all the debts demonstrated the federal government’s commitment to honouring its debt obligations, and its revenue generation initiatives remained important to Nigeria’s fiscal balance. 

(NAN)