By Danladi Ahmed
The Democratic Front (TDF) has described former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s comment on borrowings by the federal government as mischievous.
In a statement by its Chairman Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, it argued that the Presidential aspirant is using narrow, short-sighted metrics to assess the need and viability of the borrowings.
“Our position is informed by the recent economic survey and analysis of Nigeria’s debt profile by the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), based on credible and empirical research, showing that Nigeria requires spending a minimum of $14.2 billion annually for a consistent period of 10 years to close the country’s huge infrastructural gap.
“We wonder where Atiku Abubakar expects Nigeria to generate such a humongous amount of money without massively increasing taxes
“We believe that the decision by the President Bola Tinubu administration to borrow for Nigeria’s infrastructural development is largely informed by the realisation that inadequate infrastructure, coupled with the exponential rise in the country’s population, is responsible for the poor level of productivity, which in turn, accounts for the ever-growing level of unemployment and appalling state of poverty in the nation. This is the sad reality which Atiku mischievously failed to comprehend.
“Atiku cannot, for selfish political reasons, deny that those foreign loans are tied to mega projects like the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway, Phase 1A of the Lagos Green Line, Kano State Metro City Rail, and Kaduna State Light Rail System amongst others.
“This represents a huge financial relief for Nigeria’s internal revenue and fiscal commitments, because these aforementioned projects will directly pay back the loans from returns on investment.
“We find Atiku’s antics more intellectually distasteful and disconcerting, when we remember that during the period he was Nigeria’s Vice President, the government spent a meagre sum of $3.5 billion annually on capital spending.
“Despite rising crude oil revenue, there was worsening infrastructural deficit, resulting in widespread power outages, decaying roads, and grossly underperforming sectors.
“We wonder how the former Vice President found the spine to condemn President Tinubu for embarking on the courageous and commendable route to reducing Nigeria’s infrastructural deficit with foreign loans that are strictly tied to mega national projects, despite the clear reality of the inexcusable failure to build critical infrastructure, by the government he served.”
The group also alluded to a widely circulating policy statement by the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI) which justified the Tinubu borrowings.
“It is necessary to refer the former Vice President to IMPI’s policy statement 037, which revealed that President Tinubu’s administration is the biggest spender on infrastructure in the last 25 years in Nigeria, when compared to other governments within the period.
“One of the foremost independent policy groups in the country, authoritatively stated in its lucid and compelling analysis of Nigeria’s debt burden, that no government since 1999, has spent up to `$8 billion annually on infrastructure like the Tinubu administration is currently doing.
“IMPI equally hinted that savings from fuel subsidy alone cannot fund the nation’s infrastructural requirements. These are indeed realities the former Vice President cannot deny.
“The irresponsible use of unprintable and intemperate words by Atiku Abubakar to condemn President Tinubu’s borrowings, is further proof of his personal frustration with President Tinubu’s exceptional performance in successfully resetting Nigeria’s economy, against his blind political rhetoric.
The mischievous antics of a former Vice President who encouraged and aided his own President to waste $18 billion in the name of debt relief from the Paris Club of creditors and another $16 billion said to have been wasted on nonexistent power projects totalling $34 billion, at a time the nation was in dire need of infrastructural transformation, deserve to be ignored by Nigerians. We therefore urge the Nigerian electorate to continue to reject Atiku Abubakar at the polls,” it added.