The Economic Confidential, in the latest ranking, has ranked Lagos State as number one highly indebted states in Nigeria.
Lagos sits atop the list after incurring a total of N1.043 trillion in 2018. The ranking shows Lagos has N513,514,416,769.20 as external debt and N 530,243,773,934.40 as domestic debt, bringing the total debt by Lagos to N1,043,758,190,703. 60.
According to Economic Confidential researchers on the Annual High Indebted States (AHIS) on External and Domestic Debts as of 2018, “the amount owed by Lagos State represents about twenty (20) percent of the total debts owed by the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) which is N5.376 trillion in 2018.”
The Economic Confidential recently published a report detailing each states’ revenue generation profile in comparison to their federal allocations while concluding that many states cannot survive without federation allocations.
States listed as highly indebted are Edo, Kaduna, Cross River and Bauchi.
“Among the front runners in 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.
“Investigations further reveal that among 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 with N225.592 billion, Akwa Ibom state with N198.663 billion and Cross River with N167.955 billion.
“Outside Lagos state that is leading the pack, Rivers state is second with N253.772 billion, Delta comes to third position with N251.589 billion, followed by Cross River in the fourth position with N235.914 billion and the fifth position was grabbed by Akwa Ibom with N215.099 billion,” the ranking shows.
The ranking also revealed the five states that made the list of least indebted states in the external debt stock.
Taraba state has a debt of $21.611m (N7.780bn), Borno has a debt of $21.618m(N7.782bn), while Yobe state debt stands at $27.486m(N9.895bn).
“Two states of 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 (5) 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.”
The external debt profile of Federal Capital Territory for 2018 stands at $31.848 million (N11.465bn) while the domestic debt is N164.245bn bringing a total of its external and domestic debts to N175.710bn.
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