Financial Mess: APC Counters Obaseki, Says The Pot Should Not Call The Kettle Black

The APC caretaker committee chairman in Edo, Col. David Imuse (rtd) in a statement on Monday through the assistant secretary of the committee, Ofure Osheobo submitted that Edo is not faring any better under the leadership of Obaseki as Governor.

The statement released in Benin, the state capital said Obaseki criticizing the federal government is a “classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.”

It will be recalled that Obaseki said that the federal government printed N60 billion as part of federal allocation for March.

Speaking at the Edo state transition committee stakeholders engagement on Thursday, the governor said Nigeria is in huge financial trouble.

He added that the economy is no longer what it used to be due to the rising debt profile as dependence on crude oil is no longer sustainable.

But reacting to the Governor’s position, the APC said Obaseki has plunged Edo into great debts with nothing to show for it and therefore has no moral right to call out anybody for similar acts.

“The true position is that under Obaseki’s watch, the economy of Edo is in dire straits with the governor bereft of ideas on how to get it out.

“The state is engulfed in a foreign debt of 300 million dollars and a domestic debt including loans from commercial banks, the capital market, and other doubtful sources, approaching N120billion as at March, for non-existent projects.

“In the past seven months, Mr Obaseki has plunged Edo into higher debts by taking more loans which has seen a 67 per cent increase in its debt profile.

“Edo under him has overtaken Rivers as the state with the highest foreign and domestic debt in the South-South and it is on a steady course to displace Lagos as Nigeria’s most indebted state,” he said.

Imuse added that at the federal level, the APC met a lot of ruins from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when it took over in 2015 which it is still trying to correct.

“Everybody today knows that since 2015 when APC came on the scene, Nigeria has been on the path of progress and things are definitely much better than how PDP left it,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reacted to the claim by the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, that the country printed N60 billion as part of federal allocation for March.

Reacting to the allegation, the spokesperson of CBN, Osita Nwanisobi, denied knowledge of the claim made by the Edo governor.

“I am not aware of that (N60bn printed by the government,” he told the PUNCH.