…Urges NASS to probe looting of loans
By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected reported moves by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration to further mortgage the nation with a fresh N2.66 trillion ($4 billion and €710 million) external loan.
The party in a statement on Tuesday by it’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan lamented that with the reckless borrowing by President Buhari and the APC, Nigerians might eventually not have a nation and a patrimony they can freely call their own, after the APC vacates office.
The PDP said that with the N33.107 trillion debt already accumulated by President Buhari and the APC, an additional N5.62 trillion borrowing proposed by Buhari for the 2022 budget and a fresh N2.66 trillion external loan, the APC will be hanging over N40 trillion debt on the nation, with no clear-cut repayment plan.
PDP stated that the debts that APC is hanging on Nigerians are for nebulous projects whose scopes, utilities, locations and contractors are largely vague; a development that validates apprehensions of a huge swindle on the nation at the expense of innocent Nigerians, including generation yet unborn.
The party holds it as an act of wickedness that individuals who know that they will be leaving office in less than two years will be accumulating debts instead of seeking ways to reduce the liability they have brought upon our nation.
“The APC knows it will not be around after May 29, 2023. That is why it is pushing our nation into deeper economic quagmire with foreign loans, which are largely diverted to personal pockets of their corrupt leaders.
“Given their incompetence, corruption and manifest nonchalant attitude to the plights of Nigerians, the APC and its administration have not shown any commitment towards wealth creation as expected of any responsible government.
“Rather, they have resorted to reckless borrowing, pillaging of our national vault and suppression of our productive sectors; a development that have crippled our Gross Domestic Produce (GDP) to the extent that our naira, which the PDP handed over to the APC at N167 to a dollar, has now collapsed to a dismal and all-time low of N557 to a dollar under the APC”.
The PDP called on the National Assembly to save the nation by rising above partisan sentiments to reject the latest request by President Buhari for a fresh foreign loan.
The party further urged the National Assembly to immediately commence an open investigative hearing on all the loans collected by President Buhari especially with allegations that they are being diverted to the personal pockets of APC leaders, the cabal in the Presidency as well as APC government functionaries and their cronies
