NIGERIA IS SPENDING ₦15.8 TRILLION ON DEBT THIS YEAR More Than All Recurrent Operations Combined

AFRICAN STARTUPS RAISED $705M

Budget analysis: debt service claim now 23% of total spending; IMF flags emerging market vulnerability

Nigeria will spend more on servicing its debts in 2026 than on running the entire federal recurrent operations of government, according to figures contained in the ₦68.32 trillion Appropriation Act signed by President Tinubu on Friday.

The budget allocates ₦15.8 trillion to debt service, representing approximately 23% of total expenditure. Recurrent spending, covering salaries, overheads, and non-debt government operations, stands at ₦15.4 trillion, ₦400 billion less than what Nigeria will pay to creditors this year.

The country owes money to multilateral institutions, bilateral creditors, and domestic bondholders. As crude oil revenues remain volatile and the Middle East conflict has added new cost pressures, the fiscal margin for discretionary spending, including economic stimulus or emergency SME support is narrow.

The IMF's April 2026 World Economic Outlook specifically cited elevated public debt as one of the key vulnerabilities facing emerging market economies, warning that it heightens the risk of financial instability during external shocks.

For Nigerian businesses, the consequence is direct: the government's capacity to deploy targeted business support, credit guarantees, emergency lending windows, tax relief, is constrained by the debt service burden. SMEs that rely on fiscal buffers as their fallback position are operating on a fragile assumption.

The capital expenditure allocation of ₦32.2 trillion remains the most positive element of the budget, representing a genuine commitment to infrastructure spending if disbursed fully.