FOREIGN DEBT AND NIGERIA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 2015 – 2024

MOKELU, CHIAMAKA MIRACLE (2026) FOREIGN DEBT AND NIGERIA’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 2015 – 2024. Other thesis, GODFREY OKOYE UNIVERSITY, ENUGU.

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Abstract

The current study investigates the linkage between foreign debt and Nigeria's economic development during the last ten years between 2015 and 2024 when the country has been borrowing heavily from the external sector, experiencing a number of recessions and continuing to suffer from social underdevelopment. The Federal Government external debts of Nigeria have increased from the level of about $10.72 billion in 2015 to over $42 billion by 2024, without the commensurate improvement in growth, employment, poverty reduction, and human development. The study is ex-post-facto research design and uses secondary data from the Debt Management Office (DMO), the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and is anchored in the Debt Overhang Theory (Krugman, 1988; Sachs, 1989) as the main framework with dependency theory as a supporting theory. Data analysis was done through descriptive and content analysis. The analysis shows that debt-service payments, which increased from 37.49 percent of federal revenue in 2015 to a projected 105 percent by 2024, have a steady negative impact on capital spending and investment in the social sector, especially health and education, thereby directly restricting human development outcomes. In Nigeria, the Human Development Index rose by just 0.023 and the country's rank in the global index dropped by 11 places from 152nd in 2000 to 163rd in 2010. Unemployment reached its highest level in 2020 at 33.3 percent and poverty has stayed above 40 percent of the population. The study finds that Nigeria's foreign debt was a fiscal burden and not a development catalyst during the study period, thus confirming the actions of a debt dependence cycle, which is influenced by the failure of good governance, revenue performance and institutional capacity. The study suggests three possible remedies that can break this cycle: an expansion of domestic revenue, a shift towards concessional borrowing in the portfolios, and the legislated minimum budget allocations for health and education. The focus of this paper is on the foreign debts of Nigeria, which constitute a substantial proportion of external debts, and the Nigerian external debt, in comparison to the economic development of the country, the nature of debt overhang, the Human Deve

Item Type:	Thesis (Other)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Divisions:	Faculty of Management and Social Sciences
Depositing User:	CHIBUEZE EZE
Date Deposited:	03 Aug 2026 12:08
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2026 12:08
URI:	http://eprints.gouni.edu.ng/id/eprint/6150

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