’Nigerians are in the dark’ – Peter Obi Speaks on Tinubu’s “excessive” borrowings

Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in 2023, has accused President Bola Tinubu of abandoning Nigeria’s economic issues.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Obi knocked Tinubu’s economic management style adding that the recent National Assembly’s approval of president request for the securitisation of outstanding N7.3 trillion ‘Ways and Means’ debt balance was a violation of the CBN act.

Ways and Means is a loan facility through which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) provides short-term financing to cover the government’s budget shortfalls.

“This is the time when we need to go beyond politics and partisan grandstanding to address the fundamental issues of rational economic management. I am afraid that the current administration is not paying sufficient attention to issues of rational economic management,” Obi said.

“In seven years, CBN lending to the Buhari government had climbed 2700% in flagrant violation of the CBN Act.

“Indifferent to the illegality of the excessive ways and means borrowing, the national assembly still approved the new Tinubu administration’s request for an N7.3 trn securitization of the existing ways and means facility just before considering the 2024 budget proposals.

“No questions asked. No explanations were sought as to the precise purpose of these borrowings all within the seven-month tenure of this government.

“Ordinarily, minimum public accountability should require that the president and his administration offer more specific explanations about the purpose of these borrowings. But so far, all we have been told is that these borrowings are meant to fund ‘capital’ expenditure,” he added.