Abuja — Some of the loans Nigeria is currently re-paying were obtained immediately after the nation attained independence in October 1960, according to Dr Abraham Nwankwo, Director-General of the Debts Management Office (DMO).

Nwanwko spoke at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum yesterday in Abuja.

"Two major clarifications: After independence, Nigeria did borrow; Nigeria did borrow in the 60s. Indeed, if you go to our loan books now, which are available for public scrutiny, you find out that some of the loans we have in our books now were borrowed in 1965, 1970, in 1968", he said.

Nwankwo said the then central and regional governments took the loans to execute major projects.

He said that it was on record that the loans were specifically used to "build major roads, monumental houses of assemblies in Kaduna, Enugu, as well as in Ibadan."

Nwankwo further said the loans were used to establish many federal universities and other notable tertiary institutions.

According to him, most of the successful agricultural projects of the past were funded with borrowed moneys, adding: "We have the details of some of the moneys that were borrowed in 1960."

The director-general said he was in custody of the record of the country's national development plans of the 1960s and 1970s in which the central and regional governments issued development loan stocks.

"Borrowing is not new to Nigeria and indeed as I said earlier, borrowing is an integral part of a modern economy", he said.

Nwankwo described the DMO as a permanent feature of every emerging economy because governments all over the world, no matter how developed, needed to borrow to fund major projects.

"In this way, you are in the position to fast-track development; this explains why even countries like United Kingdom, United States, France and Germany that are so well advanced still borrow domestically and externally", he said.

Nigeria's total public debts as at June were $29 billion. This includes external debts of $4.27 billion and domestic debts of N3.76 trillion.

Nwankwo said that 85 per cent of the external debt was from the concessionary window of the World Bank and the soft window of the African Development Bank (ADB).

"These are windows where the total finance charged of what you have borrowed is not more than 1.25 per cent per annum", he explained.

He said that loans from the concessionary window had longer re-payment periods.

He condemned the brandishing of wrong figures on Nigeria's debts, stressing that the DMO was the only agency allowed to comment on the volume of the debts.

"The Debt Management Office is the only agency that can tell you how much Nigeria owes externally and domestically", he said.

He stressed that borrowed funds must be used judiciously to execute the project they were borrowed for.

"We have to ensure that the proceeds of borrowed funds are used in such a way that they generate maximum output, maximum growth, maximum employment, maximum poverty reduction", he said.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has put Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at between $178 billion and $179 billion.

The Central Bank of Nigeria yesterday said that Nigeria's external reserves have declined to $36 billion as against $64 billion in the corresponding period in 2008.