THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised its voice against President Muhammadu Buhari’s fresh external loan request of $5.5 billion pending before the National Assembly for approval.
In a statement yesterday, its National Publicity Secretary, Prince Dayo Adyeye, accused the President of mortgaging the future of unborn generation of Nigerians through “needless and mindless” borrowing.
The Debt Management Office (DMO), in a recent public statement, had put the Federal Government’s total borrowing in the past two years at N7.51 trillion.
Describing the government’s penchant for borrowing as mind-boggling, the PDP warned that the fresh $5.5 billion loan request was capable of pushing the nation down the black hole of debt that could adversely affect the country’s future.
The statement said: “As a party that governed this nation meritoriously for 16 years and handed over a buoyant economy to the APC in 2015, we are concerned that by the time Nigerians would have the opportunity to push out the APC government in 2019, the economy of the nation would have been damaged irreparably.”
The party challenged President Buhari to explain to Nigerians what his government has done with the huge sums borrowed in the last two years in the name of financing infrastructural development.
According to the PDP, the nation’s debt has risen by 61.96 per cent since Buhari assumed leadership over two years ago.
The party called on the National Assembly not to grant the $5.5 billion loan request.