The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has told Nigerians that
the $22.7bn loan approved by the Senate is one that will bridge the country’s
infrastructure gap and launch it into the league of nations with top-class
infrastructure at the shortest possible time.
BMO said that the loan is tied to projects that have a
direct economic impact on the lives of average Nigerians.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and
Secretary Cassidy Madueke, and made available on Sunday, BMO said
this is unlike what Nigerians witnessed in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
years.
“We recognise that many Nigerians who lived through the
16-year misrule of PDP are apprehensive about the just approved external
borrowing plan, but we make bold to say that things would be done differently
this time.
“A cursory look through the details of the approved loan
would reveal that every single one of it is tied to one infrastructural project
or the other, ranging from power to railway lines and even education reforms
and social welfare schemes.
“This is different from what many Nigerians knew about the
PDP years where foreign loans were simply for budget support and ended up being
used to pay salaries, as explained by a one-time finance minister or looted.
“And that is why the opposition party came up with a lame
reaction to the Senate approval in which it claimed the request was ‘brimming
with unexplained, obscure, over-bloated and questionable subheads’.
“But we wonder how a party that had the opportunity to
transform the nation’s landscape at a time of high oil receipts could glibly
dismiss an approval for loan for, amongst others, the Lagos-Kano Railway
Modernisation Project (Ibadan-Kano Segment Double Track); Coastal Railway
Project (Calabar-Port Harcourt-Onne Deep Sea Port Segment); and even the East-West
Road Project that was used by PDP leaders as a drain pipe for slush fund
between 2006 and 2015?
“What many Nigerians do not realise is that the 8th Senate
approved about $6bn of the original $29bn loan request in 2018 which the Buhari
administration has been using for projects including the Lagos-Ibadan
Expressway that it was tied to.
“We have no doubt that when all these projects are
delivered, they will go a long way to expand the nation’s production base,
empower millions of Nigerians through job-creation, create convenience of
living, boost Ease of Doing Business as well as increase the country’s GDP and
nation’s income, year to year, which will, of course, pave way for increased
revenue to pay back the loan,” the group said.
It also commended the Senate for pushing back attempts by
the opposition to put a cog in the wheel of the process of approving the loan.
“It was clearly an attempt to continue what the previous
Senate leadership did when it opted to play politics with what should have been
seen as a national economic development agenda.
“The PDP agenda, since the Bukola Saraki years as Senate
President, was to stop President Buhari from claiming credit for bridging the
country’s infrastructure deficit in his tenure.
“But the Senate, under the present leadership of Ahmad
Lawan, waded through all the landmines of frivolous points of orders to ensure
that the loan request scaled through and we know for certain that Nigerians
would not forget him when those projects are finally in place”.
The group assured Nigerians that President Buhari has a
responsibility to bequeath a working country with laudable infrastructure even
though he inherited one with decrepit and insufficient infrastructure.
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