Nigeria's Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said,the claim by Vice President-elect, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, that the Jonathan administration will be leaving a $60 billion debt burden for the in-coming government is false, and that Nigeria’s total debt indeed stands at $63.7 billion but it is the totality of all the debts incurred by successive governments since 1960. She said,”The breakdown of the accumulated domestic stock is $18.575 billion outstanding by 2007, $17.3 billion accumulated between 2008 and 2011 and $18 billion accumulated between 2012 and 2015.“This is so because of something that happened in 2010 because of the salary increment under Yar’Adua administration which increased civil servants salaries by 53 per cent.“Those bonds have been rolled over and government had to weather the difficulties because resources to fund such increase were not there,” she said.She described Nigeria’s debt to GDP ratio as one of the lowest in the world.On the domestic debt stock, she said 20 per cent is owed by state governments with Lagos state having an external debt burden of N1.169 trillion and no $60 billion was accumulated under the Jonathan administration.
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