Nigeria’s 2024 borrowing target was exceeded by N4.79tn, the Budget Office of the Federation has disclosed, after a wider-than-projected budget deficit forced the government to raise significantly more financing than it had originally planned. The scale of the breach has renewed scrutiny of how the 2024 borrowing target was set in the first place.
According to the Fourth Quarter and Consolidated Budget Implementation Report for 2024, fresh government borrowing rose to N12.62tn during the year. That figure surpassed the N7.83tn approved by the National Assembly by N4.79tn, or 61.2 per cent, marking one of the largest overshoots of a borrowing target in recent years.
The higher borrowing followed a substantial revenue shortfall. Aggregate federal government revenue for the year stood at N20.98tn, well below the N25.88tn projected in the budget, the report showed, leaving a gap of N4.90tn that had to be plugged through additional debt.
That shortfall pushed the fiscal deficit to N13.51tn, far above the N9.18tn approved by lawmakers and higher than the N10.55tn deficit recorded in 2023. Total federal spending for the year reached N34.49tn, only N561.29bn short of the approved N35.06tn, indicating that weaker revenue, rather than higher spending, drove the wider deficit and, by extension, the breach of the 2024 borrowing target.
Debt managers had originally set the 2024 borrowing target with the expectation that oil receipts and non-oil collections would track closer to budget projections, a scenario that did not materialise as crude output and international prices underperformed through much of the year.
The consequences of exceeding the 2024 borrowing target are visible in Nigeria’s overall debt position. Total public debt climbed to N144.67tn by the end of December, pushing the debt to gross domestic product ratio to 61.22 per cent, above both Nigeria’s self-imposed ceiling of 40 per cent and the 56 per cent benchmark commonly applied to comparable economies.
Debt servicing alone consumed N12.36tn, more than 52 per cent above what had been budgeted for the year, adding further pressure after the 2024 borrowing target was breached.
The fallouts from exceeding the 2024 borrowing target are visible in Nigeria’s overall debt position. Total public debt climbed to N144.67tn by the end of December, pushing the debt to gross domestic product ratio to 61.22 per cent, above both Nigeria’s self-imposed ceiling of 40 per cent and the 56 per cent benchmark commonly applied to comparable economies. Debt servicing alone consumed N12.36tn, more than 52 per cent above what had been budgeted for the year.
Despite the scale of the shortfall, the Budget Office struck a cautiously optimistic tone in the report, noting that ongoing reforms to tax administration, non-oil revenue mobilisation and remittances from government owned enterprises were expected to gradually reduce the country’s dependence on borrowing over the medium term and prevent a repeat of the 2024 borrowing target overshoot.
Reaction to the disclosure has been sharply divided along political and economic lines. Former vice president Atiku Abubakar described the overshoot as evidence of fiscal recklessness, arguing in a statement issued through his aide, Phrank Shaibu, that Nigerians were being made to service inherited debt while new borrowing kept climbing. He contended that the removal of the fuel subsidy and increased taxation had not delivered the fiscal stability the government had promised.
Economists have offered a more measured assessment. The chief economist of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Olusegun Omisakin, argued that the more pressing question was how the borrowed funds were spent rather than the scale of borrowing itself, suggesting that investment in productive infrastructure could justify additional debt where returns exceeded borrowing costs. The chief executive of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Muda Yusuf, called instead for stronger fiscal discipline and improved domestic revenue generation to keep the debt profile sustainable.
The former Central Bank governor and Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has separately questioned why heavy borrowing has persisted even after the removal of the fuel subsidy freed up government resources, asking pointedly what the additional funds were being used for if subsidy savings were already available. The presidency has defended the borrowing programme, with finance minister Taiwo Oyedele maintaining that the funds raised were channelled into critical infrastructure rather than recurrent spending.
Nigeria’s experience of exceeding its 2024 borrowing target underscores a broader fiscal pattern that has persisted since the removal of the petrol subsidy in 2023, with revenue projections repeatedly falling short of budget estimates even as expenditure commitments hold steady. Analysts tracking the country’s public finances say the coming quarters will show whether the reforms cited by the Budget Office can narrow the gap that pushed the 2024 borrowing target off course in the first place.
