A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has appealed to Chief Bola Tinubu to address Nigeria’s rising debt burden, which he said threatens the nation’s economy.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Okechukwu expressed concerns over the mounting local and foreign debts, high-interest rates on treasury bills, and short-term Eurobonds. He stressed that these fiscal challenges jeopardize the Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda and hinder resources meant for critical sectors like health, education, and poverty alleviation.
Citing Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “He who goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing,” Okechukwu called for the establishment of a high-powered panel of inquiry to investigate Nigeria’s debt portfolio and identify questionable transactions.
While commending the removal of the fuel subsidy, Okechukwu described the current debt servicing obligations as an “anti-production elephant in the room” and urged Tinubu to recover funds lost through corrupt debt practices.
Okechukwu stated, “It is regrettable that the budget for Defence (N4.91tr), Infrastructure (N4.06tr), Education (N3.52tr), and Health (N2.48tr), totaling N14.97tr, is far less than the N15.8trillion budgeted for debt service.”
Speaking further, he noted, “Yes, the fuel subsidy is gone, albeit the subsidy regime had links to the planlessness and squandermania that governed the sordid debt exercise. Or do we forget outliers like when Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the current WTO President, instituted a panel that probed and found that the fuel subsidy was riddled with corruption, upon which the culprits resorted to kidnapping her mother?”
“Accordingly, Mr. President should dust off Okonjo-Iweala’s files and other bad loan files with the intent to recover monies and return Nigeria to a productive economy.”
Okechukwu recalled with nostalgia that Nigeria’s first loan from the Paris Club in 1964 was $13.1 million for the construction of the Niger Dam. He also mentioned Nigeria’s debt relief deal under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration in 2005, where $35.994 billion in debt was canceled.
He noted, paradoxically, that today, Nigeria’s debt burden stands at N121.67 trillion, equivalent to $91.46 billion USD.
“The only way to break the fetters of the debt burden, as we did in 2005, is through fiscal restructuring. In other words, a high-powered multilateral panel of inquiry must ascertain our actual debt and seek debt cancellation,” he stated.
Advising on what must be done, the former Director General of Voice of Nigeria urged Tinubu to make bold decisions.
“I agree totally with Tinubu that we must make bold decisions, even though they may be painful. Accordingly, the necessary bold decisions at this critical juncture are not excessive taxation or high tariffs, but a multilateral, high-powered panel of inquiry comprising eminent local and international statesmen to reexamine our domestic and foreign debts as the only answer to save Nigerians from the debt trap.
“And secondly, plug corruption and restrict borrowing to only critical infrastructure through humanitarian groups like SUKUK and friends of Nigeria,” Okechukwu added.
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