A foundation member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Osita Okechukwu on Monday said the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and not the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, mortgaged the future of Nigeria.
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) had on Sunday accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of “fiscal vandalism”, following the National Assembly’s approval of £21 billion in foreign loans.
The party said that the new wave of borrowing would drive Nigeria’s public debt beyond N200 trillion before the end of the year, with no corresponding development or economic revival to justify it.
Responding, Okechukwu insisted that the PDP were the ones who mortgaged Nigeria.
Speaking with journalists in Enugu, Okechukwu said: “My candid position is that the leadership of the ADC are the true vandals who really mortgaged Nigeria today and tomorrow via their less than transparent privatisation programme.
“Because electricity is the bedrock of economic development, Nigerians have not slept since the day they auctioned NEPA/PHCN/Mambilla under all manner of conspiracy theories.
“One challenges ADC, if they are truly transparent to release the House of Representatives report on the $16 billion fiscal vandalism on electricity value chain under their watch - dubbed Ndudi Elumelu 2009 Report.”
The former Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), further added that “just as ADC vandalised NEPA/PHCN/Mambilla, our economic substructure; they also vandalised the superstructure of our sister political party, the PDP’s unity rotation convention in 2023 and now took refuge in the ADC”.
Speaking on the rising debt burden the ADC is protesting about, Okechukwu said the President should resist borrowing for recurrent expenditures, but should borrow for critical infrastructure to enhance manufacturers productivity.
“For me we should resist borrowing for recurrent expenditure, rather the implementation of the Oronsaye Report and urgent cutting down of unnecessary expenditures. Albeit one will support President Tinubu to borrow about $50 billions to overhaul the entire electricity value chain, a bedrock of economic resorgimento,” he said.
Okechukwu further advised the President that instead of borrowing $3 billion to rehabilitate narrow gauge of the Eastern Corridor Railways at the moment, he should borrow a commensurate higher amount for standard gauge railways and one deep sea port in the Niger Delta to stimulate economic growth.
