The Federal Government, through the Debt Management Office, has opened subscriptions for N750bn worth of Federal Government of Nigeria bonds for March 2026.
Details from the March 2026 bond offer circular published on the DMO’s website on Wednesday showed that the offer comprises three re-opened instruments: N250bn for the 17.945 per cent FGN August 2030 bond, N200bn for the 17.95 per cent FGN June 2032 bond, and N300bn for the 19.89 per cent FGN May 2033 bond, bringing the total to N750bn.
The auction is scheduled for March 30, 2026, with settlement fixed for April 1, 2026. The bonds will be issued through a competitive auction process in which investors bid based on yield-to-maturity, while coupon rates remain unchanged due to the re-opening structure.
The offer comes amid persistent fiscal pressures and rising domestic borrowing requirements, as the government continues to depend on the local debt market to finance budget deficits and refinance maturing obligations.
A month-on-month comparison indicates that the government reduced its bond offer by N50bn from the N800bn offered in February 2026.
In the previous month, the DMO offered N400bn for the 17.95% June 2032 bond, N300bn for the 19.89% May 2033 bond, and N100bn for the 19.00% February 2034 bond.
The lower offer size in March suggests a more measured borrowing approach, which may reflect improved liquidity conditions driven by higher oil prices, as well as efforts to contain rising debt service costs.
There was also a shift in the composition of the instruments, with the February offer including a longer-tenor 2034 bond, while the March issuance is concentrated around mid-tenor instruments, particularly the 2030 and 2032 bonds.
Despite the slight reduction in borrowing, interest rates on the instruments remain elevated, underscoring the high cost of domestic debt.
The March offer carries coupon rates of 17.945 per cent for the 2030 bond, 17.95 per cent for the 2032 bond, and 19.89 per cent for the 2033 bond, broadly in line with the previous month’s levels.
Although the bonds are re-openings and final borrowing costs will be determined by stop rates at the auction, the prevailing coupon benchmarks suggest yields are likely to remain around current levels, unless there is a significant shift in liquidity or inflation expectations.
The sustained high-rate environment highlights tight financial conditions, even as the Central Bank of Nigeria has begun a gradual easing of monetary policy. For the government, this implies continued pressure on debt servicing, with interest payments already accounting for a substantial share of revenue.
