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Since Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, revealed last month that as at when he came into office on May 29, 2019, the state’s debt profile stood at N150billion, there have been controversies, with officials of the past administration under Senator Abiola Ajimobi, accusing the governor of lying.
The officials on Friday offered explanations as to how debts were accrued, claiming that the debt was a little over N90billion and not N150billion as claimed by Governor Makinde.
READ: Ajimobi appointees explain how Oyo incurred N90bn debt, say Makinde lied about N150bn (SEE DETAILS)
Newspeakonline however observes that while Makinde’s claim could not be totally confirmed or controverted because figures released by the Debt Management Office (DMO) in June 2019, revealed that Oyo’s domestic debt as at March 31, 2019 stood at N94.1 billion up from N91.5billion as at December 31, 2018.
It is yet to be confirmed if any debt (or how much debt) accrued between April 1 and May 28, 2019 when the tenure of the Ajimobi administration expired. There was also no mention of foreign debts.
The DMO report showed the domestic debts of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). A breakdown of the debt figures showed that domestic debt of all the states put together stood at N3.9 trillion.
The breakdown of the foreign debt of all the states together with the Federal government is yet to be published but the total was put at N7.86trillion ($25.6 million)
See the table below (Debt as at March 31, 2019)
In order to determine how much debt the states added since between December 2018 and March 2019, check out the figures as at December 31, 2018: