The Influence of Debt Administration on Nigerian Economic Development (2014-2023)

Abstract

This research examines how debt administration practices affected Nigeria's economic development during the decade spanning 2014-2023. The investigation examines the relationships between four key financial indicators—foreign borrowing, internal debt, currency valuation rates, and lending rates—and their combined impact on actual gross domestic product. Employing a retrospective research methodology with information collected from twelve industrial sectors listed on Nigeria's Exchange Group, the study utilised standard linear regression techniques for data evaluation. The results demonstrated that all independent variables displayed negative coefficients (-0.1884, -0.0677, -0.2006, and -0.2341, respectively), indicating an inverse correlation with economic expansion. However, these relationships lacked statistical significance at the conventional 0.05 threshold (p-values: 0.424, 0.634, 0.388, and 0.149). Nevertheless, the collective F-statistic value of 4.39 confirms that debt administration practices have a significant influence on Nigeria's overall economic performance. The research concludes that current Nigerian debt management strategies have hurt economic growth and recommends directing borrowed resources toward productive enterprises, emphasising infrastructure improvement, carefully controlling external credit acquisition, regularly assessing debt composition, and enhancing transparency in financial obligation management to foster sustainable economic development.