Nigeria faces a $6.4 billion Eurobond repayment burden through 2030, but the bigger challenge may be the rising cost of refinancing those obligations as shorter maturities and higher interest rates threaten to deepen pressure on government finances, the World Bank has warned.
The warning comes as Nigeria faces a $6.4 billion sovereign Eurobond repayment burden between 2024 and 2030, the joint third-largest exposure among sub-Saharan African countries tracked by the World Bank, alongside Ghana.
But the size of the maturity wall may be only part of the challenge. The World Bank’s latest Africa Economic Update, titled Building AI Readiness, said the changing structure and cost of African sovereign borrowing could create recurring refinancing pressures and gradually weaken governments’ fiscal capacity.
“For several Sub-Saharan African sovereigns, Eurobond financing increasingly resembles a refinancing cycle in which successive rollovers address near-term maturities but gradually erode fiscal space through higher debt service costs,” the bank said.
The warning is significant for Nigeria, which emerged as the region’s second-largest Eurobond issuer between 2015 and August 2026, raising about $20 billion through 18 transactions.
South Africa led the region with $23.7 billion raised through 15 transactions, while Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Kenya followed with $15.8 billion, $15 billion, $12.6 billion and $12.2 billion respectively.
Across 13 sub-Saharan African countries, about $43.6 billion in sovereign Eurobond principal is due between 2024 and 2030, after accounting for bond buybacks and liability-management operations completed through August 2026.
South Africa carries the largest burden at $11.8 billion, followed by Ghana and Nigeria at $6.4 billion each, while Angola faces $3.9 billion, Kenya $3.2 billion, Côte d’Ivoire $2.8 billion and Zambia $2.2 billion.
Nigeria’s exposure therefore represents about 14.7 percent of the region’s total Eurobond maturity burden, with South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria together accounting for roughly 56 percent.
The greater concern, however, is the cost of replacing those obligations.
Global monetary tightening after 2022 sharply increased the cost of accessing international capital markets for African governments. Although market access began to recover in 2024, borrowing costs remained substantially above pre-tightening levels.
Nigeria’s 2024 Eurobond issues carried coupons of 9.6 percent and 10.4 percent, around 300 basis points higher than comparable Nigerian issues in 2021.
Across the region, bonds issued during the 2024 reopening of international markets carried yields ranging from 7.1 percent to 10.4 percent, roughly 300 to 500 basis points above comparable pre-2022 levels.
The World Bank said refinancing operations can ease short-term rollover risks, but warned that they also lock governments into higher debt-service costs for years, reducing the fiscal space available for other priorities.
The problem is compounded by the shortening maturity profile of new Eurobonds.
The bank noted that many instruments issued during the 2024-2026 reopening carried maturities of only five to six years, compared with the 10- to 12-year tenors that were more common before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The regional maturity profile illustrates the pressure ahead. Following liability-management operations that reduced obligations due in 2028 to about $5.5 billion, the largest concentrations are now expected in 2027 and 2029, at $6.6 billion and $7.5 billion respectively.
African governments have increasingly responded by refinancing rather than relying entirely on budget revenues to repay maturing Eurobonds.
Kenya, for example, refinanced most of a $2 billion Eurobond that matured in 2024 through a $1.5 billion new issue alongside budget resources. But the new borrowing carried a 10.4 percent yield, compared with a 6.9 percent coupon on the maturing bond.
Other countries have taken different approaches. Ghana completed a debt exchange in October 2024, while Ethiopia restructured its $1 billion debut Eurobond after defaulting in late 2023.
The World Bank said public and publicly guaranteed external debt service across sub-Saharan Africa has remained elevated at around 1.6 to 1.7 percent of GDP since 2021, with rising interest and principal payments absorbing revenues that could otherwise support infrastructure, human capital and social protection.
The implication is that debt management is increasingly becoming a question of fiscal allocation: every naira or dollar committed to servicing more expensive external debt represents resources unavailable for investment and public services.
