The Federal Government of Nigeria has formally rejected the World Bank’s finding that its interest payments reached 124 percent of revenue during the first half of 2026, describing the metric as an incomplete and misleading representation of the nation’s fiscal health.
In an official statement issued on Sunday afternoon, October 18, 2026, by the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja, government authorities pushed back against public commentary surrounding the World Bank’s newly released October 2026 Nigeria Development Update.
The Ministry of Finance asserted that the calculation compares mismatched interest figures against an incomplete federal revenue base.
The ₦7.7 trillion spent on interest servicing in H1 2026 includes external debt obligations serviced by the Federal Government on behalf of state governments. Comparing these cross-governmental obligations solely against federal revenues overstates the burden.
The reported ₦6.2 trillion federal revenue excludes independent revenues generated by government agencies and state-owned enterprises that had not yet been remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) at the close of June 2026.
Tax collection schedules in Nigeria mean revenue generation is heavily back-loaded toward the second half of the year. The Ministry maintained that Nigeria’s fiscal trajectories reflect significant structural improvement rather than distress.
The Ministry emphasized that debt sustainability must be evaluated over a full twelve-month period rather than mid-year snapshots. While H1 2025 closed at 156%, the full-year 2025 debt service-to-revenue ratio fell below 60% (down from 97% prior to structural economic reforms).
Furthermore, the same World Bank report projects Nigeria’s full-year 2026 debt-service burden (covering both interest and principal repayments) to drop to 46% of total revenue.
”Every naira borrowed by the Federal Government falls within the limits approved by the National Assembly under the 2026 Appropriation Act and the approved borrowing plan,” the statement read. “We encourage analysts and commentators to apply the same rigour they seek to hold the government to: compare like with like, read figures in context, and seek clarification where data is unclear.”
