We Are Still Within Our Limit, Sanwo-Olu Dismisses Lagos Debt Worries

Governor Babjide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has dismisses worries in some quarters over the rising debt of the state, saying that Lagos is still within the standard debt ratio.

Lagos currently stands as the highest debtor among the federating units in Nigeria either foreign or local.

According the National Bureau of Statistics, Lagos State recorded the highest domestic debt in Q1 2024 with N929. 41 billion, followed by Delta with N334.

He said the standard debt ratio is about 40 per cent but Lagos is still around between 28 and 29 per cent.

The standard debt ratio that we are meant to meet standardly is about 40%, today we are less than 30, we are about 29 or 28% of those numbers, so we are not even close to it.

“The standard debt ratio that we are meant to meet standardly is about 40%, today we are less than 30, we are about 29 or 28% of those numbers, so we are not even close to it,” Sanwo-Olu said on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Wednesday.

The governor also said that the state has grown its budget exponentially in the last five years when he came in as governor. According to him, Lagos achieves 95 per cent budget performance every year, with this year’s budget already 90 per cent gone.

“If you see what our budget growth has been in the last five year, when we came in, we inherited a budget of about N620 billion, today Lagos State is doing about N2.3 trillion.

“We are probably going to close this year’s budget at about N2.5 trillion. We have tripled the budget of this state and mind you, we year-on-year we are doing about %95 budget performance, this year alone we are well over 90%,” the governor said.