Allowing Leakages from Proceeds of Borrowing Could Put Nigeria in Bondage, Says APC Chieftain 

Fidelis David in Akure

A Canada based psychiatrist and the convener of the Oshodi for Tinubu /Shettima media Group, Dr. Abiola  Oshodi,  yesterday said borrowing and allowing leakages of the proceeds of borrowing could create a dangerous debt bondage situation for country like Nigeria.

Oshodi, who is a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State and Media Director  for the  APC Presidential Council for  Canada, in a statement he personally signed and made available to journalists in Akure opined that for Nigeria to make economic progress, it must run an evidence-led economy, guided by the rule of law, explaining that  the country’s increasing debt profile occasioned by low collection of revenue was worrisome and must be tamed by the country’s next president.

According to  Oshodi, Nigeria needs, as the next president, a financial engineer like Ahmed Bola Tinubu who as the Lagos State governor, significantly   increased the state’s revenue when he steered affairs of the state from 1999 to 2007 and laid the foundation for its current financial stability.

The APC stalwart said: “ This is the same revenue problem that Senator Tinubu met in Lagos when he assumed office as the governor of the state  ,a challenge that he promptly dealt with and if elected and  sworn in by May 29,2023 ,he would  also meet a revenue problem and he would be expected to deal with it”.

Dr Oshodi noted that government at various levels including President Muhammad Buhari had repeatedly pointed out the revenue challenges that the country was going through, adding that President Buhari himself during the presentation of the 2023 budget   affirmed that Nigeria’s debt service to revenue ratio needed close attention.

According to  Oshodi, the Nigeria’s total debt profile as at September 2022   was according to the Debt Management Office (DMO) N41.60 trillion which  the Director General of DMO  Mrs Patience Oniha   attributed to a shortfall in revenue.

Dr Oshodi said, although, the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, had clarified that Nigeria did not have a debt problem as it was yet to exceed its self-imposed ceiling debt of GDP to debt of 40 percent, she had repeatedly stressed that Nigeria had indeed a revenue problem.

“Of all the 18 illustrious Nigerians vying to be Nigeria’s next President, Senator   Tinubu stands out due to his hands on experience and to his impressive stewardship, successfully piloting the affairs of smallest but the most commercialized among Nigeria’s 36 states. When Senator Tinubu assumed office in 1999,   the Lagos State Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was said to be a paltry N600 million per annum.

“ Today,  because of the restructuring, innovativeness and the necessary policies and strategies  that he took which the successive administrations, his mentees built on, the Lagos State annual  IGR is now N753 billion according  to the latest figures by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics( NBS).

“Due to the structures laid in the eight years of Senator Tinubu, Lagos state has become among other qualities Nigeria’s  financial hub hosting over 50 per cent of Nigeria’s financial institutions and  even   with its Gross  Domestic Product(  GDP) accounting for 26.7 per cent  of the Nigeria’s GDP and more than 50 of non-oil GDP,” he  stated.