The Federal Ministry of Finance has rejected claims that interest payments consumed 124 per cent of federal revenue in the first half of 2026. The figure comes from public commentary on the World Bank’s October 2026 Nigeria Development Update, which flagged interest costs of N7.7 trillion for the period. The ministry called the reading misleading in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday.
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A mismatch in the numbers
The ministry said the interest figure includes debt the Federal Government services on behalf of other tiers of government, including external loans to states. The comparison, however, sets that cost against federal revenue alone. It argued that the two figures do not cover the same level of government, so the ratio exaggerates the burden. The ministry also said revenue rises in the second half of the year because of the timing of certain tax payments.
Improvement over the year
The ministry pointed to progress. It said the interest-to-revenue ratio fell from 156 per cent in the first half of 2025 to 124 per cent in the same period of 2026. The gap between interest payments and reported revenue narrowed from N2.0 trillion to N1.5 trillion. In its assessment, revenue is growing almost twice as fast as interest costs.
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The full-year picture
The ministry insisted that analysts should judge debt sustainability on full-year figures, not six months of data. It cited the same World Bank report, which projects full-year 2026 debt service, covering interest and principal, at 46 per cent of revenue. The ministry added that the full-year 2025 ratio stayed below 60 per cent, down from 97 per cent before the current reforms. It urged commentators to compare like with like and noted that the Debt Management Office publishes debt data regularly.
The dispute matters beyond accounting. Debt service decides how much room the government keeps for infrastructure and how much pressure it places on domestic credit markets, which small businesses rely on. Scrutiny also faces a hurdle. BusinessDay reported that Nigeria has not published quarterly budget implementation reports since the third quarter of 2025. Timely reports and clear full-year data would settle the argument faster than competing statements.
