Despite paying off its Paris Club debt in 2006, Nigeria still owes an external debt of US$3.97 billion, according to Finance Minister Mansur Mukhtar.
Addressing a House of Representatives Committee hearing, the Minister said the debt comprised US$2.093 billion owed by the federal government and US$1.85 billion owed by the states.
But he said the debt portfolio was still manageable because it was non-multilateral.
The Minister explained that the foreign debts were soft loans with long term pay ment duration from the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
‘In view of their long tenors, implying gradual instalment repayment, it is obvious that some of the outstanding loans were contracted more than 20 years ago and cannot be attributed to the last few years,” he said.
In 2006, Nigeria agreed to pay the Paris Club of creditors US$12.4 billion in exchange for the remainder of its US$30 billion official debts to be written off.
The move made Nigeria the first African nation to pay off its official lenders.