Nigeria’s ten least indebted states owed a combined total of N191.8 billion in domestic debts in Q1 2025, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO).
This represents 4.96% of the country’s total sub-national debt during the quarter.
In the period under review, Jigawa emerged as the state with the lowest sub-national debt in the federation.
On a year-on-year basis, sub-national debt among these states declined by 4.91%, from N4.07 trillion in Q1 2024 to N3.87 trillion in Q1 2025. States such as Anambra, Borno, and Kaduna also recorded reductions in their debt profiles over the same period.
The latest DMO report highlights a reshuffling in Nigeria’s sub-national debt landscape, influenced by fiscal constraints, infrastructure development ambitions, shifts in oil revenue, and tighter federal allocations.
This analysis examines the debt trends of the top 10 least indebted states.
The Kaduna state domestic debt profile reduced from N29.38 billion in Q1 2024 to N25.01 billion in Q1 2025. This shows a 14.87% year-on-year reduction in the state debt stock.
This development can be attributed to a lot of factors, key among which is an increase in IGR.
In March 2025, the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) announced that it collected a total of N14.16 billion in IGR in January and February.
Also, recently, the Kaduna state government says it recorded N91.23 billion in total revenue in the first half (H1) of 2025.
According to the commissioner for planning and budget, Mukhtar Ahmed during a stakeholders’ engagement on the state’s 2025 budget implementation report for the first and second quarters, he said as at the end of the second quarter of 2025, “Kaduna state recorded an actual total revenue of N91,232,312,135.21, while year-to-date (YTD) total expenditure stood at N89,202,307,325.45.”
“These figures contributed to the cumulative half-year budget performance of N340,296,244,691.21 for revenue and N208,760,832,569.21 for expenditure, representing 43.1 percent and 26.4 percent performance against the 2025 original budget, respectively,” he added.
Recently, the state secured a $25.35 million concessionary loan from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development to support a landmark education initiative aimed at reducing the number of out-of-school children in Kaduna.
The programme is expected to enrol over 100,000 children, build or upgrade more than 200 schools, and improve the learning environment and teacher capacity across underserved communities in the state.
