The South-West has more domestic debt than other regions of the country.
Statistics obtained from the Debt Management Office on Monday showed that the geopolitical zone was exposed to a domestic debt of N1.04tn as of March 31.
The statistics also showed that the six geopolitical zones of the country were exposed to a total domestic debt of N3.97tn as of March 31.
This means that the South-West geopolitical zone of the country accounts for 26.2 per cent of the country’s total subnational domestic debt.
The geopolitical zone is made up of six states – Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, Lagos and Osun. Lagos, the commercial capital of the country accounts for much of the indebtedness of the zone as it has domestic debt of N542.23bn.
Thus, the state, which is the largest subnational economy in the country, accounts for 51.92 per cent of the domestic debt owed by the six states in the South-West.
Osun State with N147.7bn accounts for 14.2 per cent of the indebtedness of the South-West region while Ekiti State with N118.01bn accounts for 11.35 per cent of the domestic debt owed by the South-West geopolitical zone.
Ogun State accounts for 9.34 per cent of the domestic indebtedness of the region with a total of N97.09bn while Oyo with N94.14bn accounts for 9.03 per cent of the domestic debt of the region.
Ondo which has the least domestic debt in the region accounts for 5.48 per cent with N56.96bn.
Source: Punch Newspaper.