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AN American senator recently expressed some worries about the national debt. He might as well have been speaking about Nigeria: “Our nation stands at the crossroads of liberty. Crushing national debt, rampant illegal immigration, insane business regulations and staggering national unemployment are pushing our nation into unchartered territory.”
The late Chief S. B. Falegan, one of our leading bankers and economists of the older generation,wrote an excellent book on the origins and evolution of our debt,Nigeria’s External Debt Burden, Fountain (Publications, 1992). In 1923-24, our British colonial overlords took the first ever loan on behalf of Nigeria, in the sum of £5.7 million. With an interest rate of 2.5% payable over 20 years, the loan was officially to finance capital investments. In 1936, they borrowed another £4.89 million, leading to a total external debt outlay of £9.89 million. By 1952, Nigeria’s total debt stock stood at £6.8 million. When the British departed in October 1960, the total debt stock had risen to £17 million.