By Uche Mbah
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is worried that after he and Former president Olusegun Obasanjo worked tirelessly to clear Nigeria’s foreign debt after the return of democracy in 1999, and vowed that he will not allow any government to “plunge Nigeria into debt”.
Atiku was reacting to the proposed N30 billion loan request by the Buhari government which he claims is to be used to fund critical infrastructure. The loan request, which was initially presented to the eight assembly and was rejected by both upper and lower legislative chambers, was recently represented to the Ninth Assembly under the leadership of Ahmed Lawan. Last Monday, Lawan said that the loan will be approved by the senate but that the senate will monitor implementation.
The Senate is yet to debate the issue but the Senate President appears to have already ruled, a situation that made the opposition to describe the senate as rubber stamp.
In an article he wrote Tuesday, Atiku described the government as irresponsible’
“…while spending 50% of our current revenue on debt servicing, this administration wants to take further loans of $29.6 billion! To say that this is irresponsible is itself an understatement”, he fumed.
“The fact that Nigeria currently budgets more money for debt servicing (₦2.7 trillion), than we do on capital expenditure (₦2.4 trillion) is already an indicator that we have borrowed more money than we can afford to borrow. And the thing is that debt servicing is not debt repayment. Debt servicing just means that we are paying the barest minimum allowable by our creditors,” he said.
“President Olusegun Obasanjo and I paid off this nation’s debt, and I will not stand idly by and watch while Nigeria is plunged into second slavery by those who only know how to reap where they have not sown.”
“In my economic blueprint, I said that rather than turn in regular losses (which it has consistently been doing), the best thing to do with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is to reform it. Of course, the administration’s paid propagandists went into overdrive, accusing me of planning to sell the NNPC to my friends.
“But just last week, Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO, the most profitable company in the world, took that route and almost broke the global stock market with the most successful initial IPOs in world history, bar none. Ironically, Saudi Aramco raised $29.4 billion via this IPO. Just the amount this administration wants to borrow.
“That could have been Nigeria’s story, but for our failure of leadership. By reforming the NN PC, Nigeria can raise the $29.6 billion the Buhari regime wants to borrow, and we will raise the money without going into debt.”
“I was part of a team that paid off Nigeria’s entire foreign debt. I, therefore, cannot sit and watch an administration without vision squander our children’s future by taking and wasting loans that they do not even have the capacity to utilise properly.
“Our youth must have something better to inherit from us than unsustainable debt fuelled by insatiable greed. That is why I call on the Senate of the National Assembly to show loyalty to Nigeria and reconsider its decision with regards to approving Buhari’s $29.6 billion loan request.”
