Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has joined his strong voice to the growing concern about the ballooning Nigeria’s debt profile, against the background of the plan by the Federal Government to borrowing a whooping $30 billion.
Obasanjo unequivocally cautioned against the flippant recourse to debts by the incumbent administration, saying it would lead Nigeria into bankruptcy.
He spoke as a keynote speaker at the “Why I am Alive” campaign celebration in Lagos, on Friday.
Nigeria’s external debt, he said, grew by as much as 700 percent to N24.947 trillion ($81.2.74 billion), from $10.32 billion in just four years (2015), meaning that the country would have to commit half of its foreign earnings to servicing its current level of indebtedness.
“Such a situation talks about impending bankruptcy,” the former president warned.
According to the former president, under whom Nigeria exited Paris Club debt trap in 2005, t“no entity can survive while devoting 50 percent of its revenue to debt servicing.”
He said that the current budget out of which Nigeria spends 25 percent to service debt is not the country’s total earning, explaining that a lot of it is also borrowing.
He said further, “Simply put, we are borrowing to service what we have borrowed and yet we are borrowing more. I do not need the brain of any genius to conclude that those who use statistics to dig us deeper into debt are our enemies: statistics can be used to serve any purpose, and that is why Winston Churchill talked of lies, damn lies and statistics, meaning statistics can be made master of lies.”
For him there a need for a for national dialogue or debate on Nigeria’s short, medium and long-term plans as a nation.
Obasanjo said his biggest worry was that, with the scale of debts the country was walking into, “there are already fiscal challenges to meet(ing) our obligations.”
Obasanjo, who was twice head of the Nigerian government in both military and civilian capacity between 1976 and 2007, was a special guest of the “Why I am Alive” campaign celebration tagged “The Nigerian Story” created by media personality and chief executive of Eureka Productions, Caroline Moore in Lagos on Friday.
He has been very critical of governments since he left office after completing two terms of four years each as a civilian president in 2007.
Pastor Itua Ighodalo, who moderated the Friday session, said the campaign was “designed to empower young Nigerians for the future by tapping into the key lessons from success stories of eminent personalities that have contributed to the social, economic and political growth of Nigeria.”
Nigeria in April 2006 repaid $12.4 billion to Paris Club group of creditors in exchange for a debt cancellation of an estimated $18 billion, representing about 60% of the $30 billion Nigeria owed the group. The agreement is the biggest debt relief deal for an African nation.
