Debt costs took 60.2 per cent of federal revenue in 2024, as Lokpobiri said; Budget Office tables put 2022 at 72.9 per cent and early 2023 at 131 per cent, not 97

On Saturday, 3 October 2026, the presidential adviser Bayo Onanuga reposted on X an account, credited to Southern Examiner, of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, answering criticism of fuel subsidy removal from Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. According to that account, the minister said debt service had previously been taking about 97 per cent of government income and that the ratio had since fallen to about 60 per cent. Vero Record set those figures against the Budget Office of the Federation's own implementation reports. The 60 per cent is in the record: the government's figure for 2024 is 60.2 per cent. The 97 per cent is not a figure any of the documents gives for a full year. On the Budget Office's broadest measure, debt costs took 72.9 per cent of federal revenue in 2022, and 131.0 per cent in the first three months of 2023.

The account, which ends "Culled from southernexaminer.com", gives some of the minister's words in quotation marks and summarises others. The debt-service figures and the subsidy figure are summaries. The direct quotes include: "Before this government came in, 27 states could not pay salaries"; "You recall that NNPC never paid any dividend. NNPC never made any profit at all"; "Today, NNPC is not owing any cash call"; and "over N2 trillion is shared every month" through the Federation Account Allocation Committee. The Southern Examiner website could not be reached on 3 October, so the text used here is the full article as reposted by Mr Onanuga. Vero Record did not hear a recording of the remarks.

Each Budget Office implementation report contains a fiscal account table, Table 3.9, compiled with the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. It sets "Aggregate Federal Government Revenue" against "Total Debts", which is debt service plus interest on the Central Bank's Ways and Means advances and the sinking fund. Dividing the second line by the first gives the share of federal revenue taken by debt costs. The same calculation is used for every year below.

For 2022, the last full year before the change of government, the table gives aggregate revenue of N7,756.07 billion and total debts of N5,656.58 billion: N3,763.13 billion of debt service plus N1,893.45 billion of Ways and Means interest. Those two parts add to the total, and so do the four quarterly figures (N1,245.95 billion, N1,351.90 billion, N1,635.99 billion and N1,422.74 billion). That is 72.9 per cent of revenue. On a narrower revenue line, the amount available for the federal budget excluding government-owned enterprises (N6,611.72 billion), the share is 85.6 per cent. The finance ministry's presentation of the 2023 budget proposal, given by Zainab Ahmed on 19 October 2022, charted debt service of N3.09 trillion against retained revenue of N3.66 trillion for January to July 2022, which is 84.4 per cent.

The months just before the handover were worse. The 2023 report shows aggregate revenue of N1,501.21 billion in the first quarter of 2023 and total debts of N1,966.98 billion, made up of N1,054.65 billion of debt service and N912.33 billion of Ways and Means interest. That is 131.0 per cent: in those three months the government spent more on debt than it collected. For the first half of 2023, which includes the first month of the present administration, the share was 78.9 per cent (N3,579.93 billion against N4,539.52 billion). The record therefore supports the minister's point that debt costs had been taking most of the government's income, and in one quarter more than all of it. It does not show 97 per cent for any full year. That number falls between the 2022 annual figures and the first quarter of 2023, and the published account does not say which period or measure he had in mind.

After the change of government the share fell. For the whole of 2023, total debts were N8,556.93 billion against revenue of N12,484.97 billion, or 68.5 per cent. For 2024, the fourth-quarter report, which is marked provisional, gives total debts of N12,630.88 billion (N12,361.97 billion of debt service, N3.05 billion of interest on the bonds that replaced Ways and Means, and N265.86 billion for the sinking fund) against revenue of N20,980.07 billion. That is 60.2 per cent. The 2026-2028 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework states the same number: debt servicing "accounted for 36.6% of aggregate expenditure and 60.2% of total revenue". On the 60 per cent, the minister's figure matches the government's own record for 2024.

The same documents add two qualifications. Seven pages earlier, the 2026-2028 framework says: "Total debt service cost in 2024 was N13.12 trillion. This represents 46% of FGN's expenditure and 77.5% of revenues." The document does not explain how this differs from the N12.63 trillion and 60.2 per cent it gives later; the two appear to rest on different definitions. And the latest report is above 60. The 2025 third-quarter implementation report shows total debts of N12,632.91 billion (N12,524.74 billion of debt service and N108.17 billion for the sinking fund) against aggregate revenue of N18,632.82 billion for January to September 2025. That is 67.8 per cent, or 67.2 per cent counting debt service alone. The report's own summary says the "Debt service-to-revenue ratio remains elevated".

The fall between 2022 and 2024 came from revenue growing faster than debt costs, not from debt costs falling. Revenue rose from N7,756.07 billion to N20,980.07 billion, about 2.7 times; total debts rose from N5,656.58 billion to N12,630.88 billion, about 2.2 times. The 2026-2028 framework credits the revenue gain to "improved tax administration, revenue gains from the discontinuation of fuel subsidy payments, and higher oil production", without saying how much came from each. The lines are also not identical across the years: the N1,893.45 billion of Ways and Means interest in 2022 has no matching line once those advances were turned into bonds, and aggregate revenue includes the retained revenue of government-owned enterprises and grants.

The subsidy figure can be traced to the previous government's own papers. The 2023-2025 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, prepared under Zainab Ahmed's ministry, modelled a business-as-usual case in which "the subsidy on PMS (amounting to N6.72 trillion) will be fully provided by the Federation in 2023". N6.72 trillion divided by 365 days is N18.41 billion a day, the figure the minister cited. The same framework projected the 2023 debt service to revenue ratio at 82 per cent if the subsidy stayed and 60 per cent if it ended by mid-2023. The published account goes on to say this "would amount to approximately $15 billion annually or about N21 trillion" at N1,400 to the dollar. At the framework's own exchange rate assumption of N435.57, N6.72 trillion is about $15.4 billion. The N21 trillion is that dollar sum converted at today's rate; it does not appear in the document.

On NNPC the record is mixed. The account places the minister's remark in a passage about the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation before it became NNPC Limited. NNPC Limited's audited financial statements for 2023, downloaded from nnpcgroup.com, include the company's first reporting period, from 21 September 2021 to 31 December 2022; the directors' report says the company "commenced full operation effective 1st July 2022". For that first period the group reported a profit of N2,523,514 million, all of it before the present government took office. The statement of changes in equity shows no dividend in that period, only a capital contribution of N4,409,509 million. It then records a dividend of N536,637 million in the year to 31 December 2023, and the cash flow statement lists the same sum as "Dividend paid". Group profit for 2023 was N3,297,392 million.

The statements therefore support the minister on dividends up to the end of 2022: none appears. They do not support "never made any profit at all" as a description of the period before May 2023, at least for NNPC Limited. Whether the old corporation made profits is a separate question. BusinessDay reported audited profits of N287 billion for 2020 and N674.1 billion for 2021, but Vero Record did not obtain those accounts and does not rely on the figures. The 2023 statements also do not give the date in 2023 on which the N536,637 million dividend was paid, so they do not show whether it came before or after 29 May 2023.

Three other statements were not tested against primary records for this report. No official list was found of 27 states unable to pay salaries before May 2023; the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, used the same number in a speech in August 2026. NNPC's present cash call position is set out in its 2025 annual report, which is published as page images and was not examined here. The figure of over N2 trillion a month from the Federation Account was not checked month by month; the published account itself cites N2.036 trillion shared in March 2026, attributing it to the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Put side by side, the government's own papers support the minister on the direction of the debt ratio, on the 60 per cent for 2024, and on the N18.4 billion a day subsidy estimate. For the starting point they give between 72.9 and 85.6 per cent for 2022, depending on the revenue measure, and 131.0 per cent for the first quarter of 2023, rather than a single figure of 97 per cent. They put the most recent ratio at 67.8 per cent. And they show NNPC Limited reporting a profit before May 2023, with the first dividend in its accounts recorded in 2023.

What this rests on

Budget Office of the Federation implementation reports, Table 3.9 (FGN Budget Expenditure and Fiscal Account): Fourth Quarter and Consolidated 2022 BIR (p.38, PDF p.54); Fourth Quarter and Consolidated 2023 BIR (p.34, PDF p.49); 2024 Fourth Quarter BIR, marked provisional (p.33, PDF p.47); 2025 Third Quarter BIR (p.28, PDF p.47, and summary p.iii). 2026-2028 MTEF/FSP (pp.11, 18 and 41). 2023-2025 MTEF/FSP (pp.25 and 29). Federal Ministry of Finance, Public Presentation of 2023 FGN Budget Proposal, 19 October 2022 (slide 26). NNPC Limited consolidated and separate financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023 (pp.5, 15, 17 and 19). All were downloaded on 3 October 2026 and read for this report. Arithmetic re-done: 2022, N3,763.13bn + N1,893.45bn = N5,656.58bn, and N5,656.58bn / N7,756.07bn = 72.9%, / N6,611.72bn = 85.6%; Q1 2023, N1,054.65bn + N912.33bn = N1,966.98bn, / N1,501.21bn = 131.0%; H1 2023, N3,579.93bn / N4,539.52bn = 78.9%; 2023, N6,860.28bn + N1,696.65bn = N8,556.93bn, / N12,484.97bn = 68.5% (the four quarterly revenue figures add to N12,484.98bn, a rounding difference of N0.01bn); 2024, N12,361.97bn + N3.05bn + N265.86bn = N12,630.88bn, / N20,980.07bn = 60.2% (quarters N3,586.75bn + N4,882.31bn + N6,082.63bn + N6,428.38bn = N20,980.07bn); January to September 2025, N12,524.74bn + N108.17bn = N12,632.91bn, / N18,632.82bn = 67.8% (debt service alone 67.2%; quarters N4,954.33bn + N5,974.99bn + N7,703.50bn = N18,632.82bn); January to July 2022, N3.09tn / N3.66tn = 84.4%; subsidy, N6.72tn / 365 = N18.41bn; N6.72tn / N435.57 = about US$15.4bn.

What this does not establish

Which period or definition the minister used for "about 97 per cent"; none of the government documents read gives that figure for a full year. Why the 2026-2028 framework gives both 60.2 per cent and 77.5 per cent for 2024. How much of the revenue rise since 2023 came from subsidy removal as against tax administration, exchange rate movements or oil output. The date in 2023 on which NNPC Limited paid its N536,637 million dividend. Whether the old NNPC corporation made profits in 2020 and 2021; its accounts were not obtained. The claims about 27 states and salaries, NNPC's current cash call position, and monthly FAAC totals were not tested. The 2024 figures come from a report the Budget Office marks provisional. Nothing in this report suggests wrongdoing by anyone.