The International Monetary Fund (IMF) confirmed on Thursday that Nigeria has fully repaid the $3.4billion COVID-19 financial support it received under the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI).
However, the government is still indebted to the multilateral organisation to the tune of about $30million, which covers the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) charges.
The $30million, equivalent of N48.2billion, would be paid annually over a period of four years as charges on the loan. This would amount to over N190billion.
The SDRs are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the IMF, representing a claim to currency held by IMF member countries for which they may be exchanged.
There have been mixed reactions over the claim of the full repayment of the IMF loan which the presidency has widely celebrated.
Senior Special Assistant to the President, Otega Ogra had posted a widely circulated post on X (formerly Twitter) account sharing the good news of Nigeria’s exit from the IMF debtors’ list.
He described it as sign of “discipline, reform and strategic reset by the Tinubu-Shettima administration in restructuring our finances to enable us to be better placed for a prosperous future.”
The announcement was coming amid criticism of the Bola Tinubu-led administration over the rising domestic and external debts.
Nigeria’s total domestic and external debts stood at to over N144.67 trillion as of December 2024, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO).
IMF clears the air
In a statement on behalf of the IMF’s Resident Representative for Nigeria, Mr. Christian Ebeke cleared the air on the repayment of the RFI loan facility, which was disbursed in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, the global economy was almost shut down resulting in sharp fall in oil prices, slowdown of the economic activities and drastic drop in revenues to the government.
Having cleared the principal amount, the Federal government is now expected to pay the interests and charges on the loan estimated to be about N200billion.
IMF said: “As of April 30, 2025, Nigeria has fully repaid the financial support of about US$3.4 billion it requested and received in April 2020 from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) under the Rapid Financing Instrument to help alleviate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the sharp fall in oil prices.”
It, however, explained that Nigeria would continue to make annual payments of approximately $30 million in SDR-related charges over the next few years.
These charges, it stated, accrued from the difference between Nigeria’s SDR holdings and its cumulative SDR allocation.
The statement added, “Nigeria is expected to honor some additional payments in the form of Special Drawing Rights charges of about US$30 million annually.
“In line with the IMF’s Articles of Agreements, these charges, levied at the SDR interest rate, which is updated at the beginning of each week, apply to the difference between Nigeria’s SDR holdings (SDR 3,164 million) (US$4.3 billion) and its cumulative SDR allocation (SDR 4,027 million) (US$5.5 billion) The net payment of the charges stops when Nigeria’s SDR holdings reach the cumulative allocation amount.”