•Accuses APC govt of being wasteful
By Chinelo Obogo
The candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has charged President Bola Tinubu to disclose the level of debt he inherited from his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, for the sake of accountability and transparency.
The former Anambra State governor was responding to a statement credited to the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, who said Tinubu’s administration inherited a bankrupt economy from Buhari. Obi said the statement failed to disclose what the administration inherited from its predecessor that would throw Nigeria into bankruptcy.
He said: “I just read yesterday, a widely publicised story from the present APC-led Federal Government, saying that they inherited a bankrupt nation from their predecessor APC administration. But, the story failed to disclose what they inherited which had qualified us for bankruptcy status.
“One major characteristic of responsible governance is transparency and strict accountability. This demands that the government discloses exactly the degree of debt they inherited. What is inherited should be disclosed to enable the public to know where we are and where we are going.
“Rather, they took our debt profile from N12.6 trillion in 2015 to N87 trillion in 2023 when they left office without improving on any indices of development including education, health, poverty eradication, and security.
“Also, the alarm raised by the government about the bad state of our finances raises questions about the rationale behind some expenditure items in the supplementary budget recently signed into law.
“The present revelation also goes to buttress the argument that I have made since electioneering season that the cost of governance is too high and must be drastically reduced. A bankrupt country should channel every available resource into funding critical development sectors like security, healthcare, education, and eradication of poverty by addressing youth unemployment, not spending in non-essential areas. So, what we expect are measurable and verifiable steps to improve the situation.”