Following the release of Nigeria’s debt profile by Debt Management Office (DMO) on Wednesday, July 10, Atiku Abubakar has berated the Federal Government for allegedly throwing the nation into ‘irresponsible’ debts.
DMO had said that Nigeria’s debt profile grew by 2.30 percent from December 31, 2018 to March 31, 2019.
It said the country’s debt stood at N24.387 billion in December, but has now increased to N24.947 billion as at March 31, 2019.
Nonetheless, the agency stressed that despite the increase, the figure has not passed the limit set by the Federal Government.
However, Atiku Abubakar would have none of those explanations in a statement released via his Facebook Page on Friday, July 12, 2019.
The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate decried the rise in the debt profile, while Nigerians are surprisingly becoming poorer.
Atiku described as saddening the fact that Nigeria is accumulating debts when in 2015 his administration under ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo worked to clear Nigeria’s debt.
He linked the likely cause of increased debt in President Buhari’s administration to alleged lack of check and balances, adding that everyone will suffer from the ripple effects of ‘irresponsible borrowing’ if nothing is being done to reverse the trend.
His words: “Nigeria’s debt has more than doubled from ₦12 trillion in 2015, to ₦24.9 trillion in 2019, yet we became the world headquarters for extreme poverty. Irresponsible borrowing results in unprecedented sorrowing. We mustn’t saddle future generations with debt instead of prosperity.
“As head of the National Economic Council In 2006, under the leadership of ex President Obasanjo, we paid off Nigeria’s entire debt. It thus breaks my heart to see that after that sacrifice, Nigeria in the last 4 years returned to being a heavily indebted extremely poor nation.
“Without the checks and balances occasioned by a truly independent and self accounting Legislature and Judiciary, as co equal and non subordinate arms of government, we will continue to have a profligate executive that borrows to sustain its greed and not the nation’s need.
“As it stands today, every man, woman and child in Nigeria is now not only poorer than they were in 2015, additionally, we all individually owe more than twice what we did in 2015. We may not have participated in the profligate borrowing, but we all suffer the resultant sorrowing.”
