The burden of repaying high debts is increasingly running up against political realities in African countries. According to TEMPO.CO, Jakarta, public debt is the amount of obligations that must be paid at a certain time by the government of a country to lenders.
The below is the list of the top ten indebted African Countries (in United States dollars $)
1. South Africa: 294bn
2. Egypt: 265bn
3. Morocco: 135bn
4.Algeria: 127bn
5. Nigeria: 100bn
06 Kenya: 78bn
07 Angola: 64bn
08 Ethiopia: 59bn
9.Ghana: 55bn
10.Cote d’lvoire: 53bn
There are several perspectives related to public debt theory. Keynesian economists view public debt as not causing an economic burden and can overcome unemployment.
Neoclassical economists argue that public debt has no negative or positive impact, aka neutral. Meanwhile, the general public calls public debt a deferred tax that could harm future generations.
For Nigeria, which occupied the fifth position on the row, her debt trajectory can be tracked to 1952, by the end of 1952, Nigeria’s total debt burden had reached £21.24million. In the year 1960, as colonial rule ended, Nigeria’s aggregate debt stock stood at approximately £17 million
Meanwhile, in the course of the civil war, (1967-1970) the National debt burden increased significantly as the country sought to finance its war efforts. But with the civilian regime 1970-1979 Nigerian external debt grew at a very high rate.
Debt-to-GDP ratio was 46.3% in 2023, in Q1’2024, N2.46 trillion was used to service public debt. After the debt relief, Nigeria accumulated new debt.
Thus, by 2019,total public debt had reached $83.9 billion. But in 2005, Nigeria secured a landmark $18 billion debt relief and cleared the remaining $12 billion owed to the Paris Club in 2006.
