Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, has responded to the recent claims by the All Progressive Congress (APC)-led Government that they inherited a bankrupt nation.
Obi said that the present administration, after taking over from former President Muhammadu Buhari on May 29, 2023, has not been transparent about the exact financial conditions it inherited, expressing concerns about the lack of accountability.
The former Anambra governor also criticized the All Progressives Congress-led government for attributing its failures to the previous administration, drawing a parallel with former leader Buhari, who, according to Obi, did the same in 2015 after taking over from President Goodluck Jonathan.
Obi made this known in a statement posted on his X on Thursday responding to President Tinubu and National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu’s assertions regarding the liabilities inherited by the administration.
“I just read yesterday, a widely publicized story from the present APC-led Federal Government saying that they inherited a bankrupt nation from their predecessor APC administration. But the story failed to disclose what they inherited which had qualified us for bankruptcy status,” Obi said.
“One major characteristic of responsible governance is transparency and strict accountability. This demands that the government disclose exactly the degree of deficit they inherited. What is inherited should be disclosed to enable the public to know where we are and where we are headed.
“Recall that the previous APC Government made a similar claim in 2015 against the PDP administration that handed over to them without telling the nation what it inherited.”
Obi strongly criticized the government for extensive borrowings, resulting in a surge in the country’s debt profile. He pointed out that this, coupled with economic deterioration, has placed significant hardships on Nigerians.
“Rather, they took our debt profile from N12.6 trillion in 2015 to N87 trillion in 2023 when they left office without improving on any indices of development: Education, Health, Poverty eradication, and Security,” he said.
“Instead, the condition of the nation on every development index got worse, leading to the present sad state. Nigerians know things are bad, and they experience it daily. What they now want to hear regularly are measurable and verifiable steps to improve the situation.”
He went ahead to condemn some items included in the N2.17 trillion supplementary budget, assigning blame to government officials for their failure to trim down the overall cost of governance.
“Also, the alarm raised by the government about the bad state of our finances raises questions about the rationale behind some expenditure items in the supplementary budget recently signed into law,” he wrote.
“The present revelation also goes to buttress the argument that I have made since electioneering season that the cost of governance is too high and must be drastically reduced. A bankrupt country should channel every available resource into funding critical development sectors like security, healthcare, education, and eradication of poverty by addressing youth unemployment, not spending in non-essential areas. So, what we expect are measurable and verifiable steps to improve the situation.”
Kanyi Daily recalls that Bola Tinubu said that poverty, though not a source of shame, is deemed unacceptable under his leadership in Nigeria.
