Outrage as Buhari seeks NASS approval for fresh $4bn, Euro 710m loan

 

.Buhari, APC selling Nigeria –PDP

…Urges NASS to probe looting of loans

 

OBIORA IFOH, and ADEKUNLE ADESUJI, Abuja

 

President Muhammadu Buhari has written the Senate to approve a fresh loan of $4,054,476, 863.00, Euro 710million and a grant of $125million to finance critical projects in the 2021 budget.

 

Buhari’s request was contained in his letter read by Senate President Ahmad Lawan at plenary following the resumption of the Upper Chamber from its two-month annual vacation.

 

According to the President, the request is an addendum to the proposed 2018 – 2021 Federal Government External Borrowing Rolling Plan earlier approved by the National Assembly.

 

He said that the projects listed in the addendum to the 2018 – 2021 Federal Government External Borrowing Rolling Plan are to be financed through sovereign loans from the World Bank, French Development Agency, China Exim Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Credit Swiss Group, among others.

“In view of other emerging needs and to ensure that all critical projects approved by FEC as at June 2021 are incorporated, I hereby forward an addendum to the proposed borrowing plan,” Buhari said.

 

Meanwhile ,The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said it has vehemently rejected reported moves by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration to further mortgage our nation with a fresh N2.66 trillion ($4 billion and €710 million) external loan.

 

The party in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan said that with the reckless borrowing by President Buhari and the APC, Nigerians might eventually not have a nation and a patrimony that they can freely call their own, after the APC, which has less than two years to vacate office.

 

“The PDP laments that with the N33.107 trillion debt already accumulated by President Buhari and the APC with nothing to show but decayed infrastructure and a depressed economy, an addition N5.62 trillion borrowing proposed by Buhari for the 2022 budget and now a fresh N2.66 trillion external loan, the APC will be hanging over N40 trillion debt on the nation, with no clear-cut repayment plan.

 

“More alarming is that the debts that APC is hanging on Nigerians are for nebulous projects whose scopes, utilities, locations and contractors are largely vague; a development that validates apprehensions of a huge swindle on our nation at the expense of innocent Nigerians, including generation yet unborn.

 

“Our party holds it as an act of wickedness that individuals who know that they will be leaving office in less than two years will be accumulating debts instead of seeking ways to reduce the liability they have brought upon our nation.

 

“The APC knows it will not be around after May 29, 2023. That is why it is pushing our nation into deeper economic quagmire with foreign loans, which are largely diverted to personal pockets of their corrupt leaders.

 

“Given their incompetence, corruption and manifest nonchalant attitude to the plights of Nigerians, the APC and its administration have not shown any commitment towards wealth creation as expected of any responsible government.

“Rather, they have resorted to reckless borrowing, pillaging of our national vault and suppression of our productive sectors; a development that have crippled our Gross Domestic Produce (GDP) to the extent that our naira, which the PDP handed over to the APC at N167 to a dollar, has now collapsed to a dismal and all-time low of N557 to a dollar under the APC.

 

“The PDP calls on the National Assembly to save our nation by rising above partisan sentiments to reject this latest request by President Buhari for a fresh foreign loan.

 

“Our party also urges the National Assembly to immediately commence an open investigative hearing on all the loans collected by President Buhari especially with allegations that they are being diverted to the personal pockets of APC leaders, the cabal in the Presidency as well as APC government functionaries and their cronies.”