The latest figures from the National Bureau of Statistics and the Debt Management Office paint a worrying picture of limited investor confidence at the subnational level and a growing reliance on domestic borrowing and federal allocations to finance operations.
Within one year, 10 states increased their debt by N417.71bn, as other states paid off their loans. The NBS capital importation report shows that only a handful of states attracted measurable foreign investment in the first quarter of 2025.
In contrast to the 31 states that attracted no foreign capital, only five states and the Federal Capital Territory managed to pull in investment in the first quarter of 2025. Together, they secured $5.63bn in foreign capital inflows, up from $3.38bn in Q1 2024, while carrying a combined domestic debt stock of N1.30tn.
This represents 33.48 per cent of the total subnational domestic debt of N3.87tn, slightly down from 35.34 per cent a year earlier when their obligations stood at N1.44tn. The figures show an improvement in investor appetite for these jurisdictions, coupled with deliberate debt consolidation as their overall obligations declined by N142.35bn year-on-year.