Nigeria spent N5.28 trillion servicing its domestic debt between January and June 2026, with N4.95 trillion going to interest and rentals on government securities and another N333.96 billion repaying the principal on promissory notes, according to figures released by the Debt Management Office. The two quarters differed sharply: N3.14 trillion left the treasury in the first quarter and N2.14 trillion in the second.
Federal Government bonds were the most expensive instrument. Interest on them cost N3.35 trillion over the six months, ahead of N1.49 trillion in interest on Nigerian Treasury Bills. Those two instruments account for nearly all of the interest bill. The remainder was small: N92.29 billion in rentals on the Federal Government Sukuk, N8.90 billion in interest on FGN Savings Bonds and N5.56 billion in interest on green bonds. The Eastern Updates’ arithmetic on the monthly DMO figures reconciles with the headline: the six monthly totals add up to the N5.28 trillion, and the instrument-level interest lines sum to the N4.95 trillion reported for interest and rentals.
The monthly path was uneven. Bond interest rose from N462.44 billion in January to N707.25 billion in February and peaked at N792.34 billion in March. It then fell to N530.84 billion in April and N332.49 billion in May before climbing to N525.05 billion in June. Treasury bill interest peaked in March too, at about N481.47 billion. Total domestic debt service, which adds principal repayments to interest and rentals, was highest in March at N1.43 trillion, followed by February at N967.67 billion. June came in at N811.62 billion, April at N765.19 billion and January at N741.82 billion. May was the lightest month at N567.16 billion. The swings track the timing of interest obligations and principal repayments across instruments, the accompanying data indicate.
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Principal repayments were concentrated in two months: N154.23 billion in March and N136.96 billion in June. Of the N333.96 billion repaid on promissory notes, N263.27 billion was on naira-denominated notes and N70.69 billion on notes denominated in foreign currency.
The quarterly comparison shows how heavy the first three months were. The first quarter’s N3.14 trillion was 20.3% higher than the N2.61 trillion paid in the same quarter of 2025 and 37.5% above the N2.28 trillion paid in the fourth quarter of 2025. In that quarter, roughly N95 of every N100 spent went to interest and about N5 to principal. The second quarter’s N2.14 trillion was 31.8% lower than the first, with interest on FGN bonds at N1.39 trillion and principal repayments at N164.28 billion. The decline came while the debt stock grew.
That stock is large and rising. Nigeria’s total public debt reached N166.79 trillion on June 30, up from N159.35 trillion on March 31, an increase of N7.44 trillion, or about 4.7%, in a quarter. In dollar terms the total was $120.93 billion, made up of $66.41 billion in domestic debt and $54.52 billion in external debt. Domestic debt stood at N91.59 trillion, or 54.91% of the total, against N75.20 trillion in external debt. Within the domestic figure, the federal government owed N87.00 trillion and the states and the Federal Capital Territory N4.59 trillion. The June 2026 stock is about 90.9% higher than the N87.38 trillion recorded at the end of June 2023, shortly after President Bola Tinubu took office.
Converted at the official exchange rate of N1,386.2156 to the dollar that the DMO used for its March 31 portfolio, the first-half bill comes to roughly $3.8 billion. The conversion is indicative only, since it applies a March rate to a six-month total.
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An Abuja-based economist, Nonso Iheoma, said the spending crowds out other priorities. If the government keeps paying this much to service local debt, he said, it will be “left with less for important development issues.” He added that the country cannot do without debt, but that it can change the sources of its borrowing, and he noted that returns on fixed-income securities during the period were at or near 20% because of high interest rates. That return is the other side of the government’s cost: every naira of interest the Treasury pays on a bond is income to a holder of that bond.
The domestic bill is one part of a larger one. Nigeria’s total debt-service expenditure reached approximately N16 trillion in 2025, a figure that combines domestic interest with external debt obligations. First-half domestic payments alone equal about a third of that 2025 total.
The Eastern Updates
