The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said the accumulated foreign loans being obtained by President Muhammadu Buhari administration has placed the nation on “the international auction market”.
The party in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said President Buhari’s moves to take a fresh $5.513 billion (N2.1 trillion) loan in addition to an earlier $22.79 billion (N8.5trillion) would compromise the fiscal integrity of the country.
According to Ologbondiyan, the size of the 2020 budget which is without an obvious operable repayment plan, will totally open up the country for economic annexation by foreign creditors.
“It is 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 this situation, the APC administration is practically driving our nation to the brinks while exposing Nigerians to the risk of modern-day slavery by mortgaging our 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.
“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,” it said.
Stating further, the PDP noted that the savings made by previous administrations have been opened up for pillaging by APC leaders and the cabal in the Buhari Presidency.
Consequently, the PDP has urged Nigerians to look beyond the primordial differences and unite in speaking against the accumulation of debts.
The party has insisted that the serial borrowing is no long a thing about political party affiliations, creed, ethnicity, class or age but a matter of saving the country from an imminent collapse.
“Our party holds that 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.
“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,” it stated.
