Anambra State former governor, Peter Obi has lamented that Nigeria has nothing to show for all the funds it has been borrowing for years.
This Obi said while reacting to the senate’s approval of the $22.7 billion loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said this when he was featured on ARISE TV today, Obi said all previous borrowings have had no positive impact on Nigeria’s economy.
According to him, the more the country borrows, the worse the economic projections, explaining gthat this is because the government has been borrowing “recklessly for consumption”, with no clear cut business plan on how to spend the fund or invest it to generate money for repayment.
“Everybody knows my stand on borrowing. I am against reckless borrowing and borrowing for consumption. If you must borrow, you must be able to prove the business case of the borrowing convincingly, otherwise, you are mortgaging the future,” Obi said.
“All the funds that have been borrowed for long in the country have not impacted positively on the growth of Nigeria’s economy, meaning that they were reckless and intended for consumption.
“Even using Kenya & Ghana in Africa, for example, both are borrowing like us. But the difference is, in 2010, Ghana’s GDP was 32 billion US Dollars, with per-capita of $1320, in 2019 its GDP had grown to $64.5 billion, with per-capita of $2200.
“In 2010, when we started…all these borrowings, our per capita was 2,300. Today, it is 1,920. So, something is missing. The more we borrow, the worse our economy, which means we are not investing this money.
“We have borrowed in Nigeria, call it from 2008 till date, we’ve been able to borrow, where our debt has now increased to almost a $100bn. What can we show for all this debt?
“No country borrows a quarter of its GDP without showing tangible investments or projects into which the borrowed funds would be deployed.
