The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised the alarm over President Muhammadu Buhari’s fresh loan request of $5.5 billion from different international financial institutions.
The party said that with the volume of foreign loans being accumulated by the administration, the nation and her people have been placed on the international auction market.
In a statement on Thursday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, flayed the President’s decision to take a fresh $5.513 billion (N2.1 trillion) loan, in addition to an earlier $22.79 billion (N8.5 trillion).
According to the PDP, the administration did not have operable repayment plans for the loans, a situation it said, could totally compromise the country’s fiscal integrity and open her up for economic annexation by foreign creditors.
Recalling that the government had recently secured another N850 billion from the capital market, the party said it’s regrettable that the administration has been going cap in hands to shop for more foreign loans.
The PDP further said it’s alarming that the Federal Government could not muster the capacity to harness the huge resources available in the country to generate even half of its own budget for the current fiscal year.
The main opposition party said the Buhari administration is practically driving the nation to the brinks.
It added that the government was exposing Nigerians to the risk of modern day slavery by mortgaging their future to economic appropriation by foreign interests.
Continuing, the PDP said, “Already the situation has created apprehensions, anxiety and trepidation among the citizens, particularly the youths, who are now scared about their future and the survival of our nation under the APC.
“It is even more distressing that this administration cannot account for the loans it has taken so far. In spite of the deluge of loans, the lives of the ordinary Nigerians, on whose behalf they claim to be amassing these debts, have become worse than the APC and Buhari met them in 2015.
“Painfully, even the savings made by previous administrations have been opened up for pillaging by APC leaders and the cabal in the Buhari Presidency”.
The party called on Nigerians to look beyond primordial differences and unite in speaking against debt accumulation.
“It is no longer about political party affiliations, creed, ethnicity, class or age. We all must unite in one voice to save our nation from an imminent collapse.
“Our party holds that rather than mortgaging our nation to foreign interests, President Buhari should immediately cut the size of his government, slash its over bloated budget, clip its luxuries, curb unbridled corruption in his administration and make haste to recover the N14 trillion that was stolen by APC leaders under his watch.
“If the N14 trillion stashed away by APC leaders and the cabal is recovered, our nation will not be in need of these humongous foreign loans”, the party added.
The PDP urged the National Assembly to stand on the side of the people and save the nation by immediately using its legislative instrument to check what it described as the administration’s unbridled appetite for foreign loans.
