The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday, decried as alarming, Nigeria’s rising debt profile and implored the Federal Government to desist from “indiscriminate borrowing.”
In a statement titled:
“Nigeria In Financial Crisis: Robbing Our Children to Pay for Our Greed,” the former vice president said Nigeria was not repaying its debt but servicing it.
He added that the federal government was leaving the debt for the future generation.
Atiku said: “Nothing has shocked me in my entire life in public service as the revelation from Nigeria’s First Quarter 2020 financial reports in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy from the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, which shows, alarmingly, that whereas Nigeria spent a total sum of ₦943.12 billion in debt servicing, the federal government’s retained revenue for the same period was only ₦950.56 billion. This means that Nigeria’s debt to revenue ratio is now 99 percent.
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“No one should be deceived. This is a crisis! Debt servicing does not equate to debt repayment. The reality is that Nigeria is paying only the minimum payment to cover our interest charges. The principal remains untouched and is possibly growing.
“As part of an administration that paid off Nigeria’s entire foreign debt, I am concerned by the alarming and avoidable unprecedented increase in our debt to GDP ratio and debt to revenue ratio. The alarm I sounded last year is now sounding louder.
“Not only have we squandered our opportunities, we have also squandered the opportunities of our future generations by bequeathing them a debt that they neither incurred nor enjoyed.
“Nigeria is facing a crisis, and we cannot continue to keep up appearances by taking out more loans to prop up our economy”.
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