The Federal Government spent nothing less than N13.17tn between 2016 and March 2022 under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), an analysis by The PUNCH has revealed.
Findings by The PUNCH also showed that during the same period, the government budgeted N4.4tn for education amidst constant criticism by stakeholders, including the Academic Staff Union of Universities, about the low funding of the sector.
According to the information from the Debt Management Office, from 2016 to March 2022, servicing local debts gulped N10.77tn, while the government spent N2.40tn ($7.84bn) to service external debts.
The amount spent on external debt servicing was converted to Naira at the CBN’s exchange rate for the year. For instance, the naira-dollar average exchange rate for 2016 was N197 and N305 in 2017 respectively. It was N305 in 2018 and N360 in 2019. It closed at N380 and N420 in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
From January to December, a total of N1.23tn was spent to service the country’s domestic debts in 2016, during the same year N369.60bn was budgeted for education.