The recent revelation made by the Cen-tral Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that the huge sum of $15.55bn was used for debt servic-ing over the past five years, at a time it has been made public that the President Ahmed Tinubu-led administration has so far borrowed N20.9trn from bonds within a year, is startling and worrisome. That is more so, as if he is taking a wrong cue from his predecessor, Muhammadu Bu-hari. Indeed, this calls for an urgent re-view of the borrowing saga.
Going by another allegation recently made by the current Minister of Wom-en Affairs, Mrs. Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, while speaking on Arise News, a humon-gous sum of $100m, as the first tranche of $500m borrowed from the World Bank, was misappropriated under the Buhari-led administration. The critical issues of fiscal responsibility, transparency and accountability have therefore, become compellingly imperative, to stabilize the wobbling economy.
According to her, the fund which is strictly meant for women empowerment tagged “Nigeria for Women Project” was approved on June 27, 2018. But it was mostly used for advocacy, meetings and consultancy services. Furthermore, it was allegedly “shared amongst the states” with-out proper accountability and transparen-cy”. Lack of accountability is therefore, the crux of the matter. Yet, Nigerians will still have to repay the loans, thereby put-ting the lives of millions of the citizens deeply down the pit of penury and poverty.
Another source of serious concern is that of the lack of involvement of the peo-ple’s views- to know their pressing needs and prioritizing them- when it comes to the disbursement of the huge sums involved. That explains why concerned Nigerians are raising alarm over what they term as misplaced priority, on the part of the the President Ahmed Tinubu-led govern-ment. These include the construction of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road valued at the mind-boggling sum of N15.356 trillion. So is the proposed purchase of two presi-dential jets. Both coming up at an econom-ically traumatizing time when youth un-employment, hunger and malnutrition are ravaging the land, speak volumes about our leadership structure.
It would be recalled that in December 2023, the Senate approved the request made by President Tinubu to borrow $7.8 billion and another €100 million as part of what was described as the 2022-2024 Bor-rowing Plan. Subsequently, in April 2024 this same administration reportedly bor-rowed over N3.8 trillion from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It was published in a provisional data in Statistics Bulletin for the Fourth Quarter by the CBN.
Such a situation has stirred a wave of concern amongst the enlightened citizenry, who are asking the million naira questions. For instance, is the government not making adequate income from crude oil sales, the Value Added Tax (VAT), the Cus-toms and the Immigration Services as well as the air and sea ports? Credible answers to these pertinent questions have become important. And that is because the average Nigerian can hardly point to what he is benefitting from the government, as he has to pay all manner of bills- for his children ‘s education, rent, electricity , sanitation and water supply – all in the bid to survive the government -inflicted harsh economic realities on ground.
It is curious too, that successive admin-istrations have kept borrowing to finance the annual budgets, yet leaving Nigerians poorer than they met them. For instance, as at June 2015 the Domestic Debt stood at N8.39 trillion. That was not long after the then President Goodluck Jonathan handed the baton of the presidency to his succes-sor, President Muhammadu Buhari. But some five years later, as at December, 2020 the amount had nearly doubled as it stood at N16.02 trillion. And a year later it had escalated to N19.24 trn. Yet, as if not disturbed by the scary trend of borrowing Buhari increased the external debt from $ 28.73 bn to $33.62 bn within a year, from December 2020 to December 2021.
As a matter of fact, the Domestic Debt ratio grew by 86% over six years, even as the External Debt galloped by 291% over the same period, from 2016 to 2022! Painfully, there are still no empir-ical evidences on ground in terms of solid infrastructural development, quality edu-cation and healthcare delivery to justify the huge sums so borrowed. A disturbing trend, is it not? Yes, it is, all because the state governors, including the
