Data coming from The World Bank and Budget Office of the Federation shows that Nigerians in Diaspora have remitted $60.22bn to Nigeria in three years.
“The World Bank noted that Diaspora remittances into Nigeria were estimated at $23.81bn in 2019. In its 2023 – 2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper, the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, disclosed that Diaspora remittances were $17.21bn in 2020 and $19.2bn in 2021.”
“The World Bank projects Nigeria’s Diaspora remittance inflow to increase by 7.1 per cent in 2022 reflecting the gains of the continued adoption of official bank channels and the expectation that more migrants will likely send more money home to support families in the face of increases in cost of living, This is expected to reverse the decline in the foreign reserve position and strengthen the current account balance, which has been in a net deficit since Q1 2019.”
To put it in perspective, Nigeria budget for 2022 is slotted at $39.8 billion and Nigeria cannot studiously implement its budget because its generated revenues are declining. At this moment Nigeria internal generated revenue is far below her debt. This literally means that the country cannot pay her bills and financially cannot run the country.
“The deficit will rise to 6.26 trillion naira, or 3.39% of GDP to be funded by new borrowing, proceeds from privatisations and drawdowns on loans secured for specific projects, Muhammadu Buhari told a joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.”
The remitted fund from Nigerians living abroad exceeded the money Nigeria makes from oil revenue. Therefore the remittance when properly managed by Nigeria can be used to finance its budget deficits instead of jumping into more borrowing, accumulating more debts that country cannot handle.
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