Former Vice President and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general election, Atiku Abubakar, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to apologise to Nigerians over what he described as reckless borrowing by the administration and how the terms of such loans could compromise the future of the country.
In a statement on Sunday, the former vice president said that some managers of the party and even the government had denied the allegations that he raised as well as the warning for caution.
But according to him, just last week, a cabinet minister confirmed the allegations.
“Now, we all are aware that Nigeria’s sovereignty may have been traded for foreign loans and God forbids our inability to service those loans, the lender country would take ownership of choice infrastructure on the Nigerian soil. No negotiation could be weaker than that!
“Nigeria had a total foreign debt stock of $7.02 billion on May 29, 2015. Today, our foreign debt is $23 billion and rapidly rising. Debt, by itself, is not a bad thing. But debt budgeted for such unproductive ventures, like the proposed $500 million upgrade of the Nigerian Television Authority and other sundry bogus contracts, is debt that leads to death. To trade Nigeria’s sovereignty for this type of profligacy is the height of irresponsibility,” the statement read in part.
Atiku said he has long advocated for a more robust engagement of the private sector and promotion of foreign direct investment as sustainable alternatives through which the government could fund infrastructure development.
But on the contrary, according to him, the Nigerian government under the banner of the All Progressives Congress threaded the direction of looking for cheap foreign loans in exchange for the sovereignty of Nigeria.
“Recall that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration initiated a National Privatization Programme with the sole objective of ensuring that the private sector took some measure of influence in social investment portfolio and, in some instances, provided funding for infrastructure development.
“There was nothing in that plan that traded Nigeria’s sovereignty for some cheap loans which, in the light of unfolding revelations of sleaze in some departments of government, would have ended in private pockets,”.
He, therefore, stated that the government and the APC must apologize to Nigerians and make an admittance of guilt for taking the country through the throes of subjugation to another country.
