The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has decried President Muhammadu Buhari’s request for a fresh $5.513 billion (N2.1 trillion) foreign loan.
It said with the volume of foreign loans being accumulated by Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC) government, that Nigeria and her people had been placed on the international auction market.
Buhari made the request for the loan in a letter he sent to the two chambers of the National Assembly on Thursday.
But responding in a statement same Thursday by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP frowned at the development.
It said that Buhari’s moves to take a fresh $5.513 billion loan in addition to an earlier $22.79 billion (N8.5 trillion), the size of 2020 budget, without operable repayment plans, would totally compromise the fiscal integrity of Nigeria and open her up for economic annexation by foreign creditors.
“This is in addition to N850 billion from the capital market,” the PDP added.
The opposition party went further to say that it was more alarming that the Buhari government, “in this fiscal year, cannot muster the capacity to harness the huge resources available in our country to generate even half of the sum of its own budget, but has been going cap in hands to shop for foreign loans.”
The PDP expressed fears that with the situation, the APC administration was practically driving our nation to the brinks while exposing Nigerians to the risk of modern day slavery by mortgaging their future to economic appropriation by foreign interests.
“Already the situation has created apprehensions, anxiety and trepidation among the citizens, particularly the youths, who are now scared about their future and the survival of our nation under the APC.
Read also: Buhari writes National Assembly, seeks fresh $5.513bn loan to finance revised budget
“It is even more distressing that this administration cannot account for the loans it has taken so far. In spite of the deluge of loans, the lives of the ordinary Nigerians, on whose behalf they claim to be amassing these debts, have become worse than the APC and Buhari met them in 2015.
“Painfully, even the savings made by previous administrations have been opened up for pillaging by APC leaders and the cabal in the Buhari Presidency,” the party said.
It, therefore, called on Nigerians to look beyond their primordial differences and unite in speaking against the accumulation of debts.
“It is no longer about political party affiliations, creed, ethnicity, class or age. We all must unite in one voice to save our nation from an imminent collapse.
“Rather than mortgaging our nation to foreign interests, President Buhari should immediately cut the size of his government, slash its over bloated budget, clip its luxuries, curb unbridled corruption in his administration and make haste to recover the N14 trillion that was stolen by APC leaders under his watch.
READ ALSO: ASO ROCK WATCH: Is Buhari restructuring Nigeria already? Two other talking points
“If the N14 trillion stashed away by APC leaders and the cabal is recovered, our nation will not be in need of these humongous foreign loans,” the PDP said.
It called on the National Assembly to stand on the side of the people and save the nation by immediately using its legislative instrument to check Buhari government’s “unbridled appetite for foreign loans”.
Opinions