At the 11 November 2026 Treasury bill auction, investors made one preference unmistakably clear: they wanted the longest paper on offer and were largely uninterested in the shorter tenors.
Bids for the 364-day Nigerian Treasury Bill hit about ₦1.08 trillion nearly 180% of the ₦600 billion on offer. That single instrument absorbed roughly 96% of all subscriptions at the sale, which the Central Bank of Nigeria ran for the Debt Management Office.
By contrast, the 91-day bill drew only about ₦19.2 billion against a ₦100 billion offer, and the 182-day bill about ₦23.0 billion against the same size of offer. Together, the two shorter tenors attracted just over ₦42 billion, or about 21% of their combined ₦200 billion target.
How the Allotment Reflected That Preference
Total bids across all three tenors came to roughly ₦1.12 trillion. The authorities allotted about ₦713 billion overall against an ₦800 billion advertised programme.
Of that, about ₦673 billion went to the one-year bill more than the amount originally offered for that tenor alone. The 91-day and 182-day bills received only about ₦18 billion and ₦22 billion respectively. In effect, almost 95% of the money the government took in at the auction was locked into the 364-day instrument.
Yields Barely Differed, Yet Demand Did
Stop rates stayed relatively tight across the curve. The 91-day and 182-day rates were held at 15.40% and 15.79%. The one-year stop rate edged up nine basis points to 15.89%.
That left the longest bill offering only about half a percentage point more than the shortest, and a thin extra premium over the six-month paper. Investors still preferred to tie up funds for a full year rather than roll shorter bills, a pattern also seen at recent auctions, including the 4 November sale where the one-year bill again took the overwhelming share of bids.
What It Signals
For the government, heavy demand for the one-year bill makes it easier to raise sizeable sums without having to push rates sharply higher across the whole curve. For investors, the message is that many are comfortable extending duration for a modest extra yield and that short- and mid-tenor paper is struggling to compete when the one-year alternative is available in size.
Whether that preference holds will show up at the next auction, when markets will again watch how much of the demand piles into the longest bill and whether stop rates stay compressed or begin to diverge more clearly by tenor.
