The history of the Ninth National Assembly, especially the Senate, will remain unpleasant to millions of Nigerians because of the manner by which it is succumbing to any request of debt brought to them for approval by President Muhammadu Buhari. The two chambers of the National Assembly leaders seem to have adopted “We Hear And We See” attitude that makes them too compromising as to be the people’s representatives.
This act will not augur well for them as they are allowing the future of the country to be mortgaged given the high number of debts incurred by the PMB administration. Within the life span of the present administration from 2015 till date the nation’s National Assembly has approved all the loans requested by the president without a wink.
According to the Debt Management Office statement on Public Debt Data as at December 31, 2020 issued on Tuesday, 16 March 2021 13:21 on its website, Nigeria’s total public debt as at December 31, 2020 was N32.915 trillion while total public debt to gross domestic product as at same month was 21.61% which is within Nigeria’s new limit of 40%.
Last year in April President Buhari asked the Senate to approve request to secure a fresh loan of N850 billion to fund some projects in the 2020 budget from the domestic capital market to ensure adequate funds to finance projects in the budget. Also the National Assembly has approved loan request of $1.5billion and €995million for the Buhari administration this year.
Once again, Nigerians were caught unawares by another effort of the PMB administration to seek approval to take another $6.1 billion or N2.343 trillion loan from bilateral and multilateral organisations to fund the deficit in the 2021 budget. To be honest, taking a new loan is uncalled for as the administration has already revealed plans to sell some assets of the federal government to finance the 2021 budget.
Nigeria is committing half of its foreign earnings to servicing its current level of indebtedness. Debt servicing had made it impossible to provide basic amenities and infrastructure without resorting to more borrowing. This is leading the country towards bankruptcy. No entity can survive while devoting 50% of its revenue to debt servicing. In spite of the debts, the realities on ground do not show any correlation with previous loans taken to bridge the infrastructure deficit. There is therefore the need to stop this trend of loan spree by the administration. The National Assembly should to monitor the executive on prompt utilisation of new loans for the specified purposes.
The question is, what are the guarantees that the present and successive administrations will have the capacity to repay these loans without making us and our unborn children to remain slaves and beggars in our own country by the creditor nations. The earlier our leaders started looking for credible answers to this burning question, the better for us all. What is really surprising Nigerians is whether our lawmakers understand the gravity of their actions in mortgaging the future of the country because contemplating an increase in Nigeria’s debt rate now is bad timing and inconsistent with current economic reality.
History will judge legislative arm for over-compromising its responsibilities in checkmating this reckless loan spree by the government. History will remember them as those that jeopardised Nigeria’s future. In the other people’s eyes as public servants they have lost self integrity of protecting the electorate interest.
Granting approval of this government’s loan spree request by the chambers clearly demonstrates them as people’s representatives with gross insensitivity to the citizens. History will remember them as public servants that reneged on their primary reasons of being in the chamber which are supposed to protect but ended up mortgaging the future of the country and the well being of citizens.
However, the current concern is who will pay these huge debts? The burden that will be left by the administration is too weighty for a weak economy like Nigeria. One is surprised too about the speed with which both chambers approve the request.
Salisu Ibrahim,
Kano
