The agitation surrounding the huge external debt incurred so far by President Mohammed Buhari led administration motivated this study. The study critically examined the contributions of external debt to economic growth in Nigeria emanating from the fourth republic to 2016, and also the direction of causality between these economic variables employing bivariate regression analysis and VAR modeling. The results show positive relationship between stocks of external debt and economic growth in Nigeria in the last 17 years, though statistically not significant at 5 percent level of significance. Also, there runs unidirectional causality between the two economic variables in the country starting from external debt to economic growth. In view of the above, it was recommended amongst others that the Nigerian government could see external debts as a viable means of financing deficit budgets and such funds should be allocated and channeled towards the productive sectors of the economy in order to achieve a sustainable economic growth.

Keywords : External Debt, Economic Growth, Fourth Republic, Nigeria Chapter One.