Debt service has taken more than half of federal retained revenue every year since 2019
Federal government debt service as a share of federal government retained revenue, 2019 to 2024, from the Budget Office of the Federation.
Debt service took 63.5 percent of the federal government’s retained revenue in 2024, down from 88.2 percent in 2021. In each of the six years from 2019 to 2024 it took more than half of retained revenue, according to the actual figures reported by the Budget Office of the Federation.
Source: Budget Office of the Federation, Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP), Tables 3.4 and 3.5 of the 2021-2023 to 2026-2028 editions; share calculated by The Public Interest. Debt service is the "Debt Service" line of the Budget Office's expenditure table, the sum of domestic debt service, foreign debt service, sinking fund payments and, from 2019 to 2023, interest on Ways and Means advances. Retained revenue is the "Federal Retained Revenues (excl. GOEs)" line, the federal government's share of oil and non-oil revenue plus its independent revenue and other revenues such as balances in special accounts, signature bonus and recoveries; it excludes the revenue retained by government-owned enterprises (GOEs). 2015 to 2018 are left out because the Budget Office's implementation reports for those years count retained revenue on a narrower basis that excludes these other revenues, and the 2015 and 2018 reports could not be read in full. 2025 is left out because full-year figures had not been published by 2 November 2026. From 2021 the Budget Office's own ratio divides by aggregate revenue including GOEs, which gives a lower figure, for example 60.2 percent for 2024.
Source documents: 2021-2023 MTEF/FSP (2019 actuals); 2022-2024 MTEF/FSP (2020 actuals); 2023-2025 MTEF/FSP (2021 actuals); 2024-2026 MTEF/FSP (2022 actuals); 2025-2027 MTEF/FSP (2023 actuals); 2026-2028 MTEF/FSP (2024 actuals).
Show the figures
| Year | Percent |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 54.04% |
| 2020 | 84.89% |
| 2021 | 88.16% |
| 2022 | 85.55% |
| 2023 | 83.15% |
| 2024 | 63.54% |
In naira, debt service rose from ₦2.45 trillion in 2019 to ₦12.63 trillion in 2024, and retained revenue from ₦4.54 trillion to ₦19.88 trillion. The share fell in 2024 because retained revenue rose by 93 percent that year while debt service rose by 48 percent.
Source: Budget Office of the Federation, MTEF/FSP 2021-2023 to 2026-2028, Table 3.4 (revenue) and Table 3.5 (expenditure). Same definitions as the chart above. Retained revenue excludes the revenue of government-owned enterprises.
Source documents: 2026-2028 MTEF/FSP (2024 actuals); Budget Office, MTEF documents.
Show the figures
| Year | Debt service | Retained revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 2,453.74 | 4,540.44 |
| 2020 | 3,342.26 | 3,937.34 |
| 2021 | 4,221.65 | 4,788.45 |
| 2022 | 5,656.58 | 6,611.71 |
| 2023 | 8,556.93 | 10,291.15 |
| 2024 | 12,630.88 | 19,879.76 |
Interest on Ways and Means advances, the overdrafts from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the federal government, formed part of debt service until the advances were converted into securities in 2023. It was ₦1.89 trillion in 2022 and ₦1.70 trillion in 2023. In 2024 foreign debt service rose to ₦6.66 trillion, from ₦1.82 trillion in 2023.
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