Shehu Sani, ex-chairman of the
committee on local and foreign debts in the previous senate, has defended the
lawmakers’ decision to reject a $29.96 billion loan request from President
Muhammadu Buhari.
In a statement on Friday, Sani
said the senate at the time rejected the request to save Nigeria from being
”recolonised by creditor banks”.
The president first forwarded the
request captured in the federal government’s 2016-2018 external borrowing plan
to the upper legislative chamber in 2016.
After failing to secure their
approval, he sent it to the ninth assembly on Thursday, asking the lawmakers to
approve the loan which he said is “critical to the delivery of the government’s
policies and programmes”.
But Sani said the country’s
external debt would have hit $52 billion if the senate had approved the loan
request.
“We turned down the FG loan
request for $30 Billion to save Nigeria from sinking into the dark gully of a
perpetual debt trap,” he said.
“We don’t want our country to be
recolonized by creditor banks.”
Sani, who represented Kaduna
central at the senate, said the country’s external debt stands at $22.08
billion as of June this year — from $10.32 billion in 2015.
He warned that borrowing further
will jeopardise Nigeria’s future.
“With the current escalation of
borrowing, we will be walking into debt slavery and move from landlords to
tenants in our country,” he said.
“They will always tell you that
even America is borrowing and I don’t know how rational is it to keep on
borrowing because Another country is borrowing.
“If we keep listening to Bankers
and contractors we will keep borrowing and burying ourselves and leave behind
for our children a legacy of debt burden.
“Loans are not charities. Most of
those encouraging more borrowing are parasitic consultants, commission agents,
rents seeking fronts and contractors. We must be cautious.”
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