A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, on Sunday appealed to President Bola Tinubu to rescue Nigerians from a debt trap in order to fulfill his Renewed Hope Agenda and allow citizens to breathe.
Okechukwu lamented that he cannot fathom how the Renewed
Hope Agenda will bring the intended succor to Nigerians when the country is
burdened with all manner of debts, both local and foreign, “prohibitive interest
rates on treasury bills, dangerous dollar-denominated loans, and short-term
Eurobonds, making the fiscal restructuring of debt service imperative.”
In a statement he signed, Okechukwu humbly appealed to the
president, citing Benjamin Franklin’s admonition that “he who goes a borrowing
goes a sorrowing,” and called for a high-powered panel of inquiry to reexamine
Nigeria’s debts to uncover genuine and less-than-transparent debt transactions.
He cautioned that the huge debt burden threatens Nigeria’s
nascent democracy and drains resources meant for health, education, and poverty
alleviation.
According to Okechukwu: “It is regrettable that the budget
for Defence (N4.91tr), Infrastructure (N4.06tr), Education (N3.52tr), and
Health (N2.48tr), totaling N14.97tr, is far less than the N15.8trillion
budgeted for debt service.”
Okechukwu acknowledged the removal of fuel subsidies, giving
kudos to President Tinubu, but lamented that the humongous debt service has now
become the new anti-production elephant in the room.
He said: “Yes, the fuel subsidy is gone, albeit the subsidy
regime had links to the planlessness and squandermania that governed the sordid
debt exercise. Or do we forget outliers like when Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the
current WTO President, instituted a panel that probed and found that the fuel
subsidy was riddled with corruption, upon which the culprits resorted to
kidnapping her mother?”
“Accordingly, Mr. President should dust off Okonjo-Iweala’s
files and other bad loan files with the intent to recover monies and return
Nigeria to a productive economy.”
Okechukwu recalled with nostalgia that Nigeria’s first loan
from the Paris Club in 1964 was $13.1 million for the construction of the Niger
Dam. He also mentioned Nigeria’s debt relief deal under President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s administration in 2005, where $35.994 billion in debt was canceled.
He noted, paradoxically, that today, Nigeria’s debt burden
stands at N121.67 trillion, equivalent to $91.46 billion USD.
“The only way to break the fetters of the debt burden, as we
did in 2005, is through fiscal restructuring. In other words, a high-powered
multilateral panel of inquiry must ascertain our actual debt and seek debt
cancellation,” he said.
On what must be done, the former Director General of Voice
of Nigeria urged President Tinubu to make bold decisions.
Okechukwu added: “I agree totally with President Tinubu that
we must make bold decisions, even though they may be painful. Accordingly, the
necessary bold decisions at this critical juncture are not excessive taxation
or high tariffs, but a multilateral, high-powered panel of inquiry comprising
eminent local and international statesmen to reexamine our domestic and foreign
debts as the only answer to save Nigerians from the debt trap.
“And secondly, plug corruption and restrict borrowing to
only critical infrastructure through humanitarian groups like SUKUK and friends
of Nigeria.”
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