By Tony Adibe
A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress and former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Mr. Osita Okechukwu has cautioned President Bola Tinubu against dragging Nigeria into more debt trap.
He argued that Mr. President should, however, Save Our Souls from the debt trap to fullfil his Renewed Hope Agenda, and all Nigerians to breathe, rather than suffocating the people with taxations and all manner of debts.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Okechukwu, who was reacting to President Tinubu’s 2025 national budget, pleaded with Tinubu, as a matter of urgent national importance to “save our souls, Nigerians “from Debt Trap so as to fulfill his Renewed Hope Agenda and allow the citizenry to breathe.”
Okechukwu said that he could not factor how the Renewed Hope Agenda “will bring the intended succour to Nigerians when we are owing all manner of debts both local and foreign, prohibitive interest rate of treasury bills, plus dangerous dollar-denominated loans, and short term EuroBond; therefore, the imperative of Fiscal Restructuring of Debt Service.”
He submitted that he “is making this humble appeal to Mr President, for Benjamin Franklin admonished us that he who goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing; hence the imperative of setting up a high-powered panel of inquiry to reexamine our debts so as to unravel genuine and less than transparent debt transactions.”
The former DG of VON cautioned that the huge debt burden was a threat to “our nascent democracy and will drain resources meant for health, education and poverty alleviation. And regrets that the budget for Defence(N4.91tr); Infrastructure(N4.06tr); Education(N3.52tr) and Health(N2.48tr) altogether totalling N14.97tr, is far less than N15.8trillion budgeted for Debt Service.”
Okechukwu acknowledged that “there is no more fuel subsidy, kudos to Mr President; unfortunately, humongous debt service has become the new elephant anti-production in the room.
“Yes, fuel subsidy is gone, albeit fuel subsidy regime which had links with the planlessness and squandermania that governed the sordid debt exercise. Or do we forget outliers like when Dr Iweala, WTO President instituted a panel which probed and found out that the fuel subsidy was riddled with corruption, upon which the culprits resorted to kidnap of her mother? “Accordingly, Mr President should dust up Iweala’s file and other bad loan files with the intendment to recover monies and return Nigeria to a productive economy.”
According to Okechukwu, “it is with nostalgia one recalls that the first loan Nigeria borrowed from Paris Club was $13.1 million in 1964 for the construction of Niger Dam and the Nigeria’s debt relief deal with same Paris Club of creditors under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration in 2005.”
He narrated that “our cancelled debt in December 2004 was $35.994 billion and paradoxically our debt burden today is N121.67 trillion equivalent of $91.46 billion USD. And the only break fetters of debt burden like in 2005 is fiscal restructuring in other words high power multilateral panel of inquiry to ascertain our actual debt and look for debt cancellation.”
Asked what must done?
Okechukwu said that he agreed totally with President Tinubu that “we must make bold decisions, even though it may be painful; accordingly the necessary bold decisions at this critical junction is not excessive taxation or high tariffs, but multilateral high powered panel of inquiry of eminent local and international statesmen to reexamine our domestic and foreign debts as the only answer to SOS (Save Our Soul) Nigerians from Debt Trap. And secondly plug corruption and restrict borrowing to only critical infrastructure via humanitarian groups like SUKUK and friends of Nigeria.”
