Nigeria still creditworthy compared to Egypt, South Africa, Senegal — Presidency

The Presidency has defended Nigeria’s borrowing profile, insisting that the country remains creditworthy and is not over-borrowed when compared with several other African economies.

Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, stated this in a post on X on Tuesday, where he argued that Nigeria still has capacity to access loans for infrastructure development.

“Nigeria has not over borrowed compared to countries like Egypt, South Africa and West African country of Senegal. Nigeria is credit worthy and can still take more loans to finance infrastructure,” Onanuga wrote.

He added that public concerns about rising debt levels were misplaced, describing them as a misunderstanding of basic economics. “The unwarranted alarm against loans is symptomatic of economic and financial ignorance,” he said.

Onanuga’s comments were made in reaction to a post by X user @Big_marvis, who compared Nigeria’s debt position with other African economies.

The user wrote that Egypt’s total debt is estimated at over $400 billion with a GDP of about $390 billion, putting its debt-to-GDP ratio above 100 percent. He also stated that South Africa’s debt stands at about $580 billion against a GDP of roughly $420 billion, or around 135 percent.

In contrast, he noted that Nigeria’s total public debt is about $110 billion with a GDP of around $340 billion, placing its debt-to-GDP ratio at about 35 percent.

The user argued that despite these figures, Nigeria is often wrongly described as the “loan capital of the world,” adding that borrowing, when used for infrastructure such as roads, power, rail, ports, agriculture, and digital expansion, should be seen as productive investment.

According to the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s total public debt rose to about ₦159 trillion as of December 2025, reflecting continued reliance on both domestic and external borrowing to finance fiscal deficits and infrastructure spending. The DMO reports that the debt stock is split almost evenly between domestic obligations (including FGN bonds, treasury bills, and other securities) and external debt owed to multilateral and bilateral lenders. Recent fiscal updates show that despite the increase in nominal debt, Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio remains around the low-to-mid 30% range in 2026 projections, which authorities say is still within sustainable limits compared to global benchmarks.