Abstract:
This study is on Debt Management in Nigeria from (1960 – 2005) challenges and prospects. This study seeks to determine how and what contributed to Nigeria public debt, both internal and external. The study is a survey research. The study randomly selected three organizations responsible for managing debt. A sample of 364 was selected from a finite population by yamene’s statistical technique. Questionnaire was developed for soliciting information from the respondents. A test-retest method was used to make the questionnaire reliable, percentages were used to analyze the biodata and question items while X2 Test of a contingency table were used to analyze the hypotheses. This study found out that Nigeria is not heavily indebted, corruption, inadequate resources are not the challenges, poverty reduction, effective fiscal and monetary policies, plus sustainable economic growth are not prospects, that debt reschedule, debt buy back and debt conversion programme are not ways of managing Nigeria external debt. This work concludes that deficiencies in managing our debt by debt agencies, non centralization of the offices, and functions/activities, plus unpatriotic attitude of past leaders, including the rapid rate of technological innovation, and overnight policy reversals by past dictatorships government. Recommendations are that debt management office, in collaboration with other agencies managing debt in Nigeria should work out guidelines and criteria for borrowing from both internal and external sources by all tiers of government, even as the viability of the projects for which loan may be obtained and determined through realistic feasibility studies. Proper funding of the agencies and award for performance, adequate framework, mainly targeted of price stability, and form a good habit that will say no to corruption and pave way for effective communication and interaction for more productivity.
