Lagos, Rivers, Delta top most indebted states list

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

Three states topped the rank of most indebted states in the Nigeria with a total debt of N1.454.44 trillion.

Lagos State with a total domestic and external debt of N1.043 trillion in 2018, is number one among the highly indebted states, a report released at the weekend by Economic Confidential stated.

While the external debt stock of Lagos State amounts to N513.514 billion, the local debt stock settled at N530.243 billion.

According to Economic Confidential researchers on Annual High Indebted States (AHIS) on External and Domestic Debt, the amount owed by Lagos State represents about 20 per cent of the total debts owed by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The report showed that the total debts owed by the 36 states of the federation amounted to N5.376 trillion in 2018.

The highly indebted states for the external debt stock include Edo, Kaduna, Cross River and Bauchi with $276.25m (N99.45bn), $227.25m (N81.81bn), $188.77m (N67.95bn), and $133.93m (N48.21bn) respectively.

The first five highly indebted states in the local debt stock saw Lagos emerging tops with N530.243 billion, followed by Delta State with N228.805 billion, Rivers State with N225.592 billion, Akwa Ibom State with N198.663 billion and Cross River State with N167.955 billion.

The report indicated that Rivers State is second with N253.772 billion, Delta State comes third with N251.589 billion, Cross River State in the fourth position with N235.914 billion and the fifth position is Akwa Ibom State with N215.099 billion debt.

The investigation also showed that five states were least indebted in the external debt stock: Taraba State $21.611m (N7.780bn), Borno State $21.618m (N7.782bn), and Yobe State $27.486m (N9.895bn), all in the North Eastern Nigeria.

The remaining two states – Plateau and Kogi from North Central Nigeria have external debt stock of $28.874m (N10.394bn) and $31.584m (N11.370bn) respectively.

Of the 36 states of the federation, five states account for the lowest in both domestic and external debts. They are Yobe, Jigawa, Sokoto, Katsina and Niger.

Yobe State has a total of N37.667 billion, Jigawa N46.586 billion, Sokoto with N52.723 billion, while Katsina and Niger states have N53.220 billion and N63.915 billion respectively.

Although, the Federal Capital Territory is not rated among the 36 states of the federation, its external debt profile for 2018 is $31.848 million (N11.465bn) and the domestic debt is N164.245bn bringing a total of its external and domestic debts to N175.710bn.

The report is coming at a time when several states in the country are struggling with payment of salaries with dwindling internally generated revenue.

Most of these states rely heavily on handouts from the monthly from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC).