The debt office's new guarantees sheet lists N7.84tn, and its largest line is N2.74tn of bonds pledged for the First Abu Dhabi swap. Its dollar lines use N1,376, not one of the CBN's published rates for 30 June

The Debt Management Office published its public debt tables for 30 June 2026 on 25 September. Among them is a one-page sheet titled "Current Outstanding FGN Guarantees & Contingent Liabilities as at June 30, 2026". It lists nine obligations that the Federal Government has guaranteed or may have to meet, with a total of N7,840,981,885,187.33, about N7.84 trillion. The DMO's summary sheet for the same date puts total public debt at N166,788,480.19 million and builds that figure from external and domestic debt lines only; it has no line for guarantees. When Vero Record checked the DMO website on 3 October 2026, the contingent liabilities sheet was the only document in the site's "Contingent Liabilities" category.

The largest line, at N2,743,860,000,000.00 or 34.99 per cent of the total, is "Collateral for Total Return Swap (Amount Drawndown - USD1.5 billion)". Note 9 at the foot of the sheet describes it as "16.9556% FGN Bonds May 2032 issued as Collateral for the USD1.5 billion drawn by the FGN under the USD5 billion Total Return Swap with First Abu Dhabi Bank". On 1 October Vero Record reported that the DMO's external debt stock now carries the $1,500.00 million swap drawing, and that the size of the facility and the collateral rested on press reports of a Bloomberg story. The new sheet is a DMO record of both: a $5 billion facility, and naira bonds with a 16.9556 per cent coupon, maturing in May 2032, pledged against the first drawing. At the sheet's own rate of N1,376 to the dollar, $1.5 billion is N2,064,000,000,000.00, so the collateral is 132.94 per cent of the amount drawn; at the N1,379.1842 the DMO uses in its debt tables, it is 132.63 per cent. Press reports in June had put the ratio at 133.3 per cent. Put another way, the pledge is N1,829.24 of bonds for each dollar drawn.

The sheet settles where the DMO books the pledge, as a contingent liability, but not everything about it. It calls the bonds "issued". The DMO's domestic debt sheet for the same date has no separate line for them: it gives FGN naira bonds as a single figure of N41,467,748,425,592.00 and does not say whether the May 2032 bonds are inside it. Nor do the bonds appear in the DMO's monthly auction results: the nine results from January to September 2026 cover nine different bonds, none of them a 16.9556 per cent May 2032 issue. The same $1.5 billion transaction therefore appears in two DMO records: as $1,500.00 million of external debt, about N2.07 trillion at N1,379.1842, and as N2.74 trillion of pledged bonds on the contingent sheet. Neither record says whether the bonds are also counted in the domestic debt total.

Power sector obligations make up most of the rest. The put-call option agreements, which note 5 says cover Azura-Edo ($707,366,653.00), Calabar NIPP ($500,000,000.00), Afrinergia Power ($65,171,228.95) and CT Cosmos ($91,239,720.53), come to N1,876,557,981,012.48, or 23.93 per cent. Partial risk guarantees for the same four projects add N329,802,982,400.00, and the guarantee for the first series of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading company's N4 trillion power sector bond programme, raised to settle debts owed to generation companies, adds N501,021,000,000.00. Together the three power lines come to N2,707,381,963,412.48, or 34.53 per cent of the total, almost the same size as the swap line. The guarantee of the Bank of Industry's 750 million euro Eurobonds is N1,179,305,925,000.00 and the Lekki Deep Sea Port guarantee is N804,960,000,000.00. Pension arrears for ministries, departments and agencies, on data from the National Pension Commission, are N374,882,789,865.16, and the note says the last employee concerned retires in 2039. The Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company guarantee is N25,353,140,395.09 and the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria bond is N5,238,066,514.60.

The sheet's arithmetic holds. Vero Record re-added the nine lines and they give the printed total to the kobo, and each percentage matches its line. The four dollar amounts in note 5 add to $1,363,777,602.48, which at N1,376 gives exactly the N1,876,557,981,012.48 printed. The Bank of Industry line is exactly 750 million euros at N1,572.4079, and that figure is the euro central rate the Central Bank of Nigeria published for 30 June 2026.

The dollar rate is the exception. The sheet's footnote reads "Exchange Rate: $/N1376.00 (CBN Official Exchange Rate as at June. 30, 2026)". The CBN's published series, retrieved from its website on 3 October, gives three dollar rates for 30 June 2026: buying N1,378.6842, central N1,379.1842 and selling N1,379.6842. The DMO's total public debt sheet and its domestic debt sheet, released the same day as the contingent sheet, both use N1,379.1842 and call it the CBN official rate as at 30 June 2026. No dollar rate in the CBN series, for any date, is exactly N1,376.00. The effect on the total is small. The three dollar lines (Lekki, the put-call agreements and the partial risk guarantees) come to $2,188,460,002.48; at N1,379.1842 they would be N6,968,494,339.90 higher, and the sheet's total would be about N7,847.95 billion rather than N7,840.98 billion, a difference of 0.09 per cent.

One note gives a second naira figure for the same guarantee. Note 3 says the Lekki guarantee covers an investment of US$1.354 billion by the port's concessionaire, and that "Only $ 585 million (equivalent to N811,228,626,000.00) has been withdrawn". The line in the table is N804,960,000,000.00, which is $585 million at N1,376. The note's figure is $585 million at N1,386.7156, to the last digit, and N1,386.7156 is the CBN's selling rate for 31 March 2026, the date of the previous quarter's tables. On Vero Record's reading, the note carries a conversion at an end-March rate that the table no longer uses; the sheet does not say. The two naira figures for the same $585 million differ by N6,268,626,000.00.

Note 2 does not add up. It says the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company guarantee lets the company raise long-term funds, and that "N29 billion (N8 billion -Series 1; N11 billion - Series 2 and N10 billion - Series 3; N11.5 bn Series 4) has been utilized out of the total Guarantee available in the sum of N440 billion". The four series listed add to N8bn + N11bn + N10bn + N11.5bn = N40.5bn, not N29bn. The first three alone add to N29bn, which is consistent with a fourth series having been added to the list without the total being changed, though the sheet does not say so. The outstanding amount in the table, N25,353,140,395.09, is lower than either figure; the sheet gives no breakdown. Note 6, on the partial risk guarantees, prints the Afrinergia Power amount as "$3,28,250.00", which is not a well-formed number. Working back from the table line, N329,802,982,400.00 at N1,376 is $239,682,400.00, and once the other three guarantees ($120,000,000.00, $111,800,000.00 and $4,602,150.00) are taken away, the Afrinergia figure must be $3,280,250.00.

The domestic debt sheet released alongside it records a large change of its own. The securitised Ways and Means, the Central Bank overdrafts to the Federal Government that the National Assembly approved converting into a long-term bond in May 2023, stood at N22,719,000,000,000.00 on the DMO's sheets for 30 June 2025, 31 December 2025 and 31 March 2026. On 30 June 2026 it is N22,105,657,728,000.00, a fall of N613,342,272,000.00 in one quarter. Reports at the time of the securitisation, among them Nairametrics on 5 May 2023, described a 40-year instrument at 9 per cent with a three-year moratorium on principal, repaid over the remaining 37 years. One thirty-seventh of N22,719 billion is N614.03 billion, close to the fall, and a three-year moratorium from May 2023 would have ended in May 2026. The DMO's sheet gives no explanation and Vero Record has not seen the instrument's terms, so the fall is consistent with a first principal repayment but is not shown to be one.

If it was a repayment, the DMO's debt service table for the quarter does not show it. The table for April to June 2026 puts federal domestic debt service at N2,143,966,217,888.82: N1,979,684,489,067.55 of interest and Sukuk rental, and N164,281,728,821.27 of principal, all of it on promissory notes. There is no principal line for the Ways and Means, nor for the FGN Green Bond, which fell from N62,355,000,000.00 to N47,355,000,000.00 in the same quarter. That is in line with how the DMO has set out these tables before: its table for January to December 2025 has no principal line for the FGN Sukuk, although the Sukuk stock fell by N100 billion between 30 June and 31 December 2025, from N1,292,557,000,000.00 to N1,192,557,000,000.00. Where the tables overlap, they agree. Naira promissory notes fell from N300,405,996,661.00 on 31 March to N206,815,011,873.00 on 30 June, a reduction of N93,590,984,788.00, exactly the amount the service table records as paid. A reader working out debt service from the table alone, however, would not see the N613.34 billion.

The records show what the DMO lists, not when or whether any of it falls due. A contingent liability becomes a cost only if a guarantee is called or pledged bonds are claimed, and the sheet gives no maturities, no record of calls and no explanation for the March rate in the Lekki note or the N29 billion in the mortgage refinance note. Nothing in these documents suggests wrongdoing by anyone, and none is alleged. The DMO was not asked for comment before publication; the figures above are its own, set against each other and against the CBN's published rates.

What this rests on

Debt Management Office documents downloaded from dmo.gov.ng on 3 October 2026 and read for this report: Outstanding Contingent Liabilities as at June 30, 2026 (item 6081, one page, PDF created 25 September 2026, publish date 25 September 2026); Nigeria's Total Public Debt as at June 30, 2026 (6080); FGN Domestic Debt Stock by Instrument as at 30 June 2026 (6075), 31 March 2026 (5998), 31 December 2025 (5810) and 30 June 2025 (5533); Actual Domestic Debt Service April to June 2026 (6076) and January to December 2025 (5812); and the nine monthly FGN bond auction results for January to September 2026 (5687, 5742, 5791, 5840, 5874, 5921, 5961, 6019, 6051). CBN exchange rates from the CBN's published series at cbn.gov.ng/api/GetAllExchangeRates, retrieved 3 October 2026 (extract saved as cbn_rates_extract.json). Arithmetic re-done: the nine contingent lines 5,238,066,514.60 + 25,353,140,395.09 + 804,960,000,000.00 + 1,179,305,925,000.00 + 1,876,557,981,012.48 + 329,802,982,400.00 + 501,021,000,000.00 + 374,882,789,865.16 + 2,743,860,000,000.00 = 7,840,981,885,187.33, as printed, with each percentage matching; PCOA $707,366,653.00 + $500,000,000.00 + $65,171,228.95 + $91,239,720.53 = $1,363,777,602.48, x 1,376 = N1,876,557,981,012.48; BOI EUR750m x 1,572.4079 = N1,179,305,925,000.00 (CBN euro central rate for 30 June 2026 is 1,572.4079); Lekki $585m x 1,376 = N804,960,000,000.00, and N811,228,626,000.00 / $585m = 1,386.7156 (CBN dollar selling rate for 31 March 2026), difference N6,268,626,000.00; PRG N329,802,982,400.00 / 1,376 = $239,682,400.00, less $120,000,000 + $111,800,000 + $4,602,150 = $3,280,250 for Afrinergia; NMRC series 8 + 11 + 10 + 11.5 = 40.5 against a stated N29bn (8 + 11 + 10 = 29); TRS $1.5bn x 1,376 = N2,064bn, 2,743.86 / 2,064 = 132.94 per cent; $1.5bn x 1,379.1842 = N2,068,776,300,000, 2,743.86 / 2,068.78 = 132.63 per cent; 2,743,860,000,000 / 1,500,000,000 = N1,829.24 per dollar; power lines 1,876,557,981,012.48 + 329,802,982,400.00 + 501,021,000,000.00 = 2,707,381,963,412.48 = 34.53 per cent; dollar lines $585,000,000 + $1,363,777,602.48 + $239,682,400.00 = $2,188,460,002.48, x 3.1842 = N6,968,494,339.90, revised total N7,847,950,379,527.23 (0.09 per cent higher); CBN dollar rates for 30 June 2026: 1,378.6842 / 1,379.1842 / 1,379.6842, and no dollar rate in the CBN series equals 1,376.0000 on any date; Ways and Means 22,719,000,000,000.00 - 22,105,657,728,000.00 = 613,342,272,000.00, and 22,719bn / 37 = 614.03bn; Green Bond 62,355,000,000 - 47,355,000,000 = 15,000,000,000; Sukuk 1,292,557,000,000 - 1,192,557,000,000 = 100,000,000,000 with no Sukuk principal in the 2025 service table; Q2 2026 service: monthly interest 740,509,995,593.98 + 564,515,717,640.87 + 674,658,775,832.70 = 1,979,684,489,067.55, principal 93,590,984,788.00 + 70,690,744,033.27 = 164,281,728,821.27, total 2,143,966,217,888.82, as printed; naira P-notes 300,405,996,661 - 206,815,011,873 = 93,590,984,788, equal to the naira P-notes paid; June domestic sheet lines add to N86,999,153,240,224.29 against a printed N86,999,153,240,224.30 (one kobo of rounding). Auction results January to September 2026 list nine bonds (Feb 2031, Feb 2034, Jan 2035, Jun 2032, May 2033, Aug 2030, Apr 2037, Jun 2038, Sep 2036), none a May 2032 issue.

What this does not establish

Whether the N2.74 trillion of May 2032 bonds pledged under the swap are also counted in the N41,467,748,425,592.00 of FGN naira bonds or anywhere else in the N166,788,480.19 million public debt total; the DMO's sheets do not say. How and when the collateral bonds were issued, at what price, and on what terms the swap runs; Vero Record has not seen the swap agreement. Why the contingent sheet uses N1,376.00 to the dollar when the CBN's 30 June rates and the DMO's other June tables give N1,379.1842; why the Lekki note carries a conversion matching the CBN's 31 March selling rate; and which figure in the mortgage refinance note, N29bn or the N40.5bn its series add to, the DMO intends. Whether the N613,342,272,000.00 fall in the securitised Ways and Means is a principal repayment, how it was paid, or whether it reflects some other adjustment; the terms cited come from 2023 press reports, not from the instrument. Whether any guarantee on the sheet has been called. Nothing in these records suggests wrongdoing by anyone, and none is alleged. The DMO was not asked for comment.