PUBLIC DEBT AND ITS EFFECT ON THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY

The study examined the impact of public debt and its effect on the Nigerian economy for the period of 1985-2020 (36years). This was done respect of measures of public debt, namely; Domestic Debt Stock (DDS), External Debt Stock (EXTDS), External Debt Servicing (EXTDSG) and Total Public Debt (TPD) and how they affect Nigerian economy {proxy with Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP)}. The method of data collection used in this study is the secondary source of data (time series data), from the CBN Annual Report and Debt Management Office Annual Reports. The data set was described using descriptive statistics and the unit root test was conducted to ascertain if the data are stationary in order to have accurate regression result. The correlation analysis will be use to ascertain the co-movement of the independent variables in relation to the dependent variable while the Multiple Regression analysis were employed with the aid of E-VIEW version 9.0 for the purpose of testing the research hypotheses raised. The finding revealed that EXTDSG have positive and significant effect on RGDP while DDS, EXTDS and TPD has negative and insignificant effect on RGDP proxied for Nigerian economy. Hence, the study concluded that public debt does not exerts significant effect on the Nigerian economy. This study recommends that since foreign debt impacted negatively on Nigerian economy, government should discontinue borrowing to finance the national budget, in a bid to achieve key macro-economic goals such as price stability, improvement in standard of living, provision of social and economic amenities amongst others, which will bring about economic growth and development in Nigeria. Keywords: Domestic Debt Stock, External Debt Stock, Debt Servicing and Real Gross Domestic Product.