Nigeria’s Money Supply rose by 3.16 per cent month-on-month to N114.2 trillion in March 2025, up from N110.7 trillion recorded in February 2025, according to the latest Money and Credit Statistics data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The increase was driven by notable growth across major components of the money supply. Quasi-money—which includes savings deposits, time deposits, and other near-money financial assets—recorded a significant 3.8 per cent MoM growth, rising to N75.7 trillion in March from N72.9 trillion in February.
Similarly, demand deposits climbed by 2.1 per cent MoM to N33.9 trillion from N33.2 trillion, while currency outside banks inched up by 1.7 per cent to N4.59 trillion in March compared to N4.51 trillion in the previous month.
Narrow money, which comprises demand deposits and currency in circulation, also increased by 2.3 per cent MoM to N38.6 trillion in March from N37.7 trillion in February.
Despite the overall rise in money supply, credit to the government recorded a notable decline. The CBN data revealed that government credit fell by 4.4 per cent MoM to N25.9 trillion in March, from N27.11 trillion in February. In contrast, credit to the private sector rose marginally by 0.013 per cent MoM to N76.26 trillion from N76.25 trillion.
Consequently, net domestic credit slipped by 1.22 per cent to N102.13 trillion in March from N103.4 trillion the month before.
In a related development, the Debt Management Office reported that Nigeria’s total public debt rose by N2.35 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2024, bringing the country’s total debt stock for the year to N144.67 trillion.
Financial analysts at CardinalStone Securities Limited, in their latest Macroeconomic Research update, projected further debt accumulation for Nigeria in 2025, citing persistent global shocks and domestic fiscal vulnerabilities.
“Due to a combination of global shocks and domestic vulnerabilities, we see scope for more debt accretion in 2025,” the firm stated.
“To start with, despite the 90-day pause on most of the U.S. retaliatory tariffs, the outlook for crude oil prices is still biased to the downside due to the intensified U.S./China trade war and expected crude oil supply glut driven by a rollback of some OPEC+ production cuts.”
They added, “For specifics, EIA now expects oil consumption to increase by 0.9mb/d in 2025 and 1.0mb/d in 2026, respectively. These projections are 0.4mb/d and 0.1mb/d lower than prior forecasts.
“At the supply end, crude inventories are likely to start building up as OPEC+ members unwind production cuts from May.
“In view of these concerns, EIA forecast mean crude oil prices at $68/bbl for 2025 and $61/bbl in 2026 (vs $81/bbl in 2024 and $63.47/bbl currently).”
The report also flagged security challenges as a constraint on Nigeria’s oil production capacity.
“Elsewhere, we retain our Nigerian oil production forecast at 1.7mb/d for 2025 as oil assets remain vulnerable to attacks.
“This output expectation, combined with the cautious outlook for prices, suggests that the government’s fiscal deficit may be wider than initially expected.
“We, therefore, expect the government to borrow between N16 trillion and N18 trillion from domestic and international markets in 2025 (vs. the government’s estimate of N13.08 trillion).”
