PDP accuses Buhari of mortgaging country’s future in planned $5.5b loan

• Asks National Assembly to reject request 

Worried about the $5.5 billion loan proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned that it was an attempt to mortgage the future of Nigerians.

A statement by the PDP spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye, in Abuja, said it was shocking that the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was planning to plunge the country into more debts.

The party lamented that the Buhari administration has borrowed N7.51 trillion since it came into power in May 2015, without any commensurate achievement in infrastructure development.

He said: “Like other well-meaning Nigerians, we consider this new bid for a foreign loan of $5.5 billion as an attempt to push the nation down into the black hole of debt that would negatively affect the future of the country.

“As a party that governed this country 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 would have been damaged irreparably.”

The PDP expressed concern about what it called an all-round infrastructure decay, which has reached an alarming proportion.

It stressed that the roads have deteriorated, while power supply has become worse, adding that there has been no increases in wages to match the skyrocketing inflation.

The party added that the situation has made workers in educational institutions and other government agencies to spend more time at home than work, to observe strike.

The statement added that those in power have continued to delude themselves that they are providing plausible leadership in the country.

The PDP challenged Buhari to explain to Nigerians what his government has done with the huge amount he borrowed in the last two years to finance infrastructure development.

According to the PDP: “The data show that since Buhari was sworn in, the nation’s debt has risen by 61.96 per cent in two years” It urged the National Assembly to reject the fresh loan.

“As major stakeholders in the Nigerian project, we are worried that if the National Assembly does not stop this latest demand for a foreign loan, the money, when released, would go the way of other loans without any tangible result to show for it,” the statement added.