CLAIM: Nigeria Is No Longer Indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
On May 7, 2025, an X user, @abdullahayofel posted a claim on the platform stating that the government of Nigeria, led by President Bola Tinubu has cleared all outstanding debt owed to the International Monetary Fund, IMF. The post which had a picture of President Tinubu during his swearing in as Nigeria’s president was captioned, “As at today 7th of May 2025, Nigeria no longer indebted to IMF as President Tinubu has cleared all loans taken from IMF by the past Presidents. Only and oloriburuku will not be happy with this news… RT❤️🇳🇬👏🥰”.
When this report was published, it had garnered over 30,000 views and about 1,000 comments, retweets, quotes, and likes. In the comment section, @Mudaoye2013 wrote “Kindly attach IMF confirmation to this your tweet and not just to curse anyone that opposes your lies and propagandas. Just attach sources of your information and people will be free to check for facts”, while @mazionuoha said “Nigeria still owes more than $42 Billion that Tinubu had borrowed from other financial institutions”.
Similar claims can be found here, here and here.
VERIFICATION
As of April 30, 2025, Nigeria has fully repaid the 3.4 billion dollars loan it received from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, in April 2020 under the Rapid Financing Instrument, RFI, to address the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following this repayment, the IMF has removed Nigeria from its list of debtor countries.
Source: IMF
Does Nigeria Still Owe The IMF?
According to the IMF, interest payments on a loan are still considered part of the debt liability, even after the principal has been repaid. The IMF considers the total amount owed, including both principal and interest, as the debt. Moreso, Special Drawing Rights, SDR charges are standard for IMF loans and are calculated based on the SDR interest rate plus a fixed margin.
The current IMF loan to Nigeria has a 0.5 percent upfront service fee and quarterly interest based on the SDR rate plus a 0.6 percent margin. As of May 2025, Nigeria’s effective annual interest rate was 3.6 percent, and despite repaying the principal in April, interest for the first quarter of 2025 remains due.
This means that Nigeria still owes the IMF approximately SDR 125.99 million in charges and interest based on the calculations above. The interest is scheduled to be paid through 2029, as seen in the data gotten from the IMF below.
Source: IMF
FIJ Nigeria reports that Nigeria is expected to pay about 275.28 billion naira in interest on its IMF loan. This figure is based on the current exchange rate between the naira and the SDR.
Therefore, while Nigeria has cleared the principal amount of its IMF loan, it continues to have financial obligations in the form of interest payments.
CONCLUSION
The claim that Nigeria has cleared its debt with the IMF is MISLEADING. Findings reveal that although the 3.4 billion dollars loan has been paid back to the IMF but the interest on said loans is still being accumulated until 2029 to the tune of 27528 billion naira. Also, the borrowing institution considers the total amount owed, including both principal and interest, as debt.
