Nigeria's debt office now lists a $1.5bn First Abu Dhabi Bank swap as external debt. It accounts for 57 per cent of the quarter's rise

The Debt Management Office has published its public debt figures for 30 June 2026. One line in them is new. Under a heading the March table did not have, "Other Commercial", the DMO's external debt stock lists "First Abu Dhabi Bank (Total Return Swap)" with $1,500.00 million outstanding. This is the first time the government's own debt ledger has recorded the swap that Nigeria drew on in June.

The DMO's summary sheet, as at 30 June 2026 and online by late September, puts total public debt at N166,788,480.19 million, or $120,932.71 million. Of that, external debt is N75,198,046.27 million ($54,523.57 million) and domestic debt is N91,590,433.92 million ($66,409.14 million). Vero Record re-added each column, and the figures sum to the totals printed.

The March 2026 sheet put total public debt at N159,351,581.44 million ($114,954.40 million). By the DMO's own figures, debt rose by N7,436,898.75 million in the second quarter, about N7.44 trillion. In dollar terms, external debt grew from $51,904.08 million to $54,523.57 million, an increase of $2,619.49 million.

The swap line alone is $1,500.00 million. By Vero Record's arithmetic (grade C), that is 57.3 per cent of the quarter's increase in external debt. At the exchange rate the DMO itself uses for June, N1,379.1842 to the dollar, the line is worth about N2,068,776.30 million, or N2.07 trillion.

The rest of the external increase also appears in the DMO's creditor table. The World Bank's International Development Association rose from $18,390.09 million to $19,123.17 million, and its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development from $1,432.95 million to $1,606.96 million. Together that is $907.09 million more. Afreximbank syndicated lending rose from $637.82 million to $835.78 million, an increase of $197.96 million. The existing First Abu Dhabi Bank syndication is $1,874.09 million in both tables. Eurobonds are unchanged at $18,547.47 million.

Vero Record added up the June creditor table. Multilateral lenders come to $24,762.24 million, bilateral lenders to $6,606.32 million and commercial lenders to $23,155.01 million, which together make the printed grand total of $54,523.57 million. Commercial debt is now 42.47 per cent of external debt. In March, Eurobonds (35.73 per cent) and syndications (5.51 per cent) were shown as separate subtotals, and Deutsche Bank's $52.11 million stood outside both.

The rise in naira terms was not caused by a weaker naira. The DMO converted March external debt at N1,386.2156 to the dollar and June external debt at N1,379.1842, so the naira was slightly stronger at the end of June. Valued at the June rate, March's external debt would have been about N364,958.35 million lower than the DMO reported in March (Vero Record arithmetic, grade C). The growth in the quarter came from new obligations, not from currency movement.

Domestic debt grew too. Federal domestic debt rose from N82,877,621.73 million to N86,999,153.24 million, an increase of N4,121,531.51 million. Domestic debt of the states and the FCT rose from N4,523,714.31 million to N4,591,280.68 million, an increase of N67,566.37 million. Added to the N3,247,800.87 million rise in external debt in naira, these give exactly the N7,436,898.75 million total increase.

Unlike the March sheet, the June summary breaks external debt down by level of government. The federal government holds $47,690.77 million (N65,774,356.36 million) and the states and FCT hold $6,832.80 million (N9,423,689.91 million). The March summary showed one external total with no split.

The DMO also published a separate June table titled "States, FCT and Federal Government's External Debt Stock as at June 30, 2026". That table does not carry the federal figure. Its "FGN" row is blank apart from dashes, and its "Grand Total" of $6,832,800,079.24 is the same as the subtotal for the states and FCT. The two percentage rows, "Percentage of States &FCT to Grand Total" and "Percentage of FGN to Grand Total", both read 0%. The "Prepared by", "Verified by", "Sign" and "Date" lines at the foot are empty. The federal figure appears only in the summary sheet.

The swap is not a normal loan. On 26 June 2026, Bloomberg reported (as relayed by Nairametrics and ThisDay) that Nigeria had drawn about $1.5 billion as the first tranche of a $5 billion total return swap with First Abu Dhabi Bank. According to that reporting, the pricing is 395 basis points over the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, rising to 400 basis points, and Nigeria pledged naira-denominated government securities worth 133.3 per cent of the amount drawn as collateral. Vero Record has not seen the swap agreement, so these terms are press reports (grade B).

Nairametrics reported that the DMO and the Ministry of Finance did not answer requests for comment at the time. Press reports also differ on when the National Assembly approved the $5 billion arrangement: some say March 2026 and others April. Vero Record has not located the approval in the votes and proceedings and does not settle the date here.

The June tables leave one question open. The DMO's sheets do not say whether the naira securities pledged as collateral are also counted in the N86,999,153.24 million of federal domestic debt, or how they are treated. The external table records the $1,500.00 million but gives no tenor, rate or maturity for it. The DMO's tables do not carry that information for any creditor.

The March external table and the June States/FGN table are both marked "Provisional", and earlier quarters have been revised later. If the remaining $3.5 billion of the facility is drawn, the next quarterly tables will show whether it goes under the same "Other Commercial" heading.

Nothing in these records suggests any wrongdoing. They show that a derivative-based financing, which press coverage in June said might not appear on the debt ledger in the same way as a Eurobond, has in fact been entered on the DMO's external debt stock at its full drawn amount, and that it was the largest single source of new external debt in the quarter.

What this rests on

Four DMO PDFs that Vero Record downloaded from dmo.gov.ng and re-added (grade A), plus the DMO's June States/FGN table (6084). The swap's pricing, collateral and approval come from press reports of Bloomberg's 26 June story (grade B). The shares, the conversion of the swap into naira and the exchange-rate comparison are Vero Record's arithmetic (grade C).

What this does not establish

The swap agreement, its tenor and its repayment terms. Whether the pledged naira bonds are counted in domestic debt. The exact date of National Assembly approval (press reports say March or April 2026). Whether any further tranches have been drawn since 30 June.