The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has demanded that President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) disclose what his government inherited from the former APC-led administration of Muhammadu Buhari that plunged Nigeria into bankruptcy.
SaharaReporters had reported that the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, claimed that the President Tinubu-led Nigerian government inherited a bankrupt country from the Buhari administration which led to the current financial distress.
Ribadu, who stated these in Abuja on Monday when he spoke at the Chief of Defence Intelligence Annual Conference 2023, had noted that Tinubu inherited an empty treasury from his predecessor when he came to power a few months ago.
Reacting to Ribadu’s claim, Obi said that the Tinubu-led government failed to disclose what they inherited which had qualified the country for bankruptcy status, stressing that one major characteristic of responsible governance is transparency and strict accountability.
On his X platform handle, the former governor of Anambra State said, “I just read yesterday, a widely publicised 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.
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.
— Peter Obi (@PeterObi) November 16, 2023
“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.”
Obi recalled that the previous APC government under the leadership of former President Buhari made a similar claim in 2015 against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration that handed over to them without telling Nigerians what it actually inherited.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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,” he said.
