STRUCTURE OF NIGERIA DOMESTIC DEBT AND IT’S IMPACT ON FOREIGN EXCHANGE EARNINGS (1986-2014)

STRUCTURE OF NIGERIA DOMESTIC DEBT AND IT’S IMPACT ON FOREIGN EXCHANGE EARNINGS (1986-2014)

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background to the Study

Debt is created by the act of borrowing. Debt has no precisely fixed meaning and may be regarded essential as that which one person legally owes to another or an obligation that is enforceable by legal action to make payment of money. Oyejide, Soyede and Kayode (2014) define debt as the resource or money used in an organization that is not contributed by its owner and does not in any other way belong to them. It is a liability represented by a financial instrument or other formal equivalent.

Securing internal or external debt is inevitable for a government when the economy faces financial crisis, as sustainable economic growth is a major concern for any sovereign nation most especially the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) which are characterized by low capital formation due to low levels of domestic savings and investment (Adepoju, Salau & Obayelu, 2012). Due to the uneven distribution of natural resources that created scarcity, countries borrow internally and externally in order to grow their economies, sustain development and ultimately improve the living standard of their citizenry.

There is no iota of doubt that Nigeria, just as any other developing country, is facing serious debt crisis. For example, the 2012 national budget presented to the National Assembly contains a deficit of N1.11trillion which has to be financed mainly through domestic debt. As at September 2011, Nigerian domestic debt stood at N5.3 trillion, an equivalent of $34.4 billion while external debt was $5.6 billion bringing the National debt to a total of $40 billion which amounted to 19.6 per cent of GDP (Nwankwo, 2011), showing that the debt-GDP ratio is still below the internationally unacceptable standard of