A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has called for a high panel of enquiry to reexamine Nigeria’s debts and uncover genuine and less-than-transparent debt transactions.
He stated this on Sunday while appealing to President Bola Tinubu to rescue Nigerians from a debt trap and allow the citizenry to breathe.
Okechukwu wondered how the Renewed Hope Agenda would rescue Nigerians from the stronghold of poverty, considering that the country is burdened with all manner of debts.
He urged the president to return to the audit on fuel subsidies by a panel instituted by the WTO president, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and return Nigeria to a productive economy.
In a statement signed by him, the elder statesman cautioned that Nigeria’s huge debt burden threatens its nascent democracy and drains resources meant for health, education, and poverty alleviation.
According to Okechukwu: “It is regrettable that the budget for Defence (N4.91tr), Infrastructure (N4.06tr), Education (N3.52tr), and Health (N2.48tr), totaling N14.97tr, is far less than the N15.8trillion budgeted for debt service.”
Okechukwu acknowledged the removal of fuel subsidies, giving kudos to President Tinubu, but lamented that the humongous debt service has now become the new anti-production elephant in the room.
He said: “Yes, the fuel subsidy is gone, albeit the subsidy regime had links to the planlessness and squandermania that governed the sordid debt exercise. Or do we forget outliers like when Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the current WTO President, instituted a panel that probed and found that the fuel subsidy was riddled with corruption, upon which the culprits resorted to kidnapping her mother?
“Accordingly, Mr. President should dust off Okonjo-Iweala’s files and other bad loan files with the intent to recover monies and return Nigeria to a productive economy.”
Okechukwu recalled with nostalgia that Nigeria’s first loan from the Paris Club in 1964 was $13.1 million for the construction of the Niger Dam. He also mentioned Nigeria’s debt relief deal under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration in 2005, where $35.994 billion in debt was cancelled.
He paradoxically noted that today, Nigeria’s debt burden stands at ₦121.67 trillion, equivalent to $91.46 billion USD.
“The only way to break the fetters of the debt burden, as we did in 2005, is through fiscal restructuring. In other words, a high-powered multilateral panel of inquiry must ascertain our actual debt and seek debt cancellation,” he said.
The former Director General of Voice of Nigeria urged President Tinubu to make bold decisions on what must be done.
Okechukwu added: “I agree totally with President Tinubu that we must make bold decisions, even though they may be painful. Accordingly, the necessary bold decisions at this critical juncture are not excessive taxation or high tariffs, but a multilateral, high-powered panel of inquiry comprising eminent local and international statesmen to reexamine our domestic and foreign debts as the only answer to save Nigerians from the debt trap.
“And secondly, plug corruption and restrict borrowing to only critical infrastructure through humanitarian groups like SUKUK and friends of Nigeria.”