In the last decade, the Nigerian debt burden has been increasing at an unsustainable rate.  Debt management is also perceived as an important factor that underpinned the stability and credibility of the banking financial sector. This study examined the impact of public debt on banking sector financial stability in Nigeria from 1986-2023. The variables include, banking sector stability index, public debt/GDP ratio, consumer price index and government expenditure, consumer price index, and GDP growth. The sources data were the Central Bank of Nigeria and National Bureau of Statistics. The techniques utilized in the study include the autoregressive distributed lag model and the Granger causality test. Finding showed that public debt has a negative and significant impact on bank stability, while the Granger causality results show that while public debt does not predict banking stability, banking sector stability is a leading indicator of changes in public debt. Based on the findings, government should adopt more prudent debt management strategies to reduce the negative impact of public debt on banking stability. This could include limiting excessive borrowing and ensuring fiscal discipline to prevent short-term financial market disruptions and long-term instability in the banking sector.

 Key word: public debt, banking sector stability, consumer price index, GDP growth;

ORCID ID: 0000-0003-1591-1141