According to a recent National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) study on Nigeria’s domestic and external debt, the oil-producing States had a combined domestic debt stock of more than N4 trillion between Q1, 2022, and Q2, 2022.
Analysis of statistics emanating from the Debt Management Office (DMO), the Federal Ministry of Finance and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suggests that the oil-producing states across the country cannot account for about N4 trillion in their transactions over a period of seven years.
Oil-producing States in Nigeria, which include Delta, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo, Ondo, Imo, Abia, Lagos, and Anambra, statutorily earn a special 13 percent derivation from proceeds of oil revenues from the federation account suggesting they earn more than most other states.
The ten oil-producing States had a combined debt stock of N2.052 trillion in the first quarter of 2022.
Recall that on Thursday, the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, disclosed that the Federal Government disbursed a total of N1.98 trillion as a share of the 13 percent Derivation Fund to oil-producing states.
The minister, who spoke at the sixth edition of the President Muhammadu Buhari Administration Scorecard, stated that the amount was paid in seven years despite some of the funds preceding the current administration.
According to data from the NBS, oil-producing States got N4.46 trillion from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) between 2016 and 2020. When combined with the N1.98 trillion allocated to oil-producing States as a share of the 13 percent derivation, the amount moves to N6.4 trillion.
Meanwhile, the total debts of 10 oil-producing states rose from N2.04tn in December 2015 to N3.35tn as of June 2022, according to sub-national debt reports of the DMO. For the time period, no oil-producing State had any external debt.
