At a function in Lagos, the former President of Nigeria – Olusegun Obasanjo – showed concern about the growing debt the country owes and warned the Federal Government against “impending bankruptcy.”
Nigeria’s external debt, he said, grew by as much as 700 percent to N24.947 trillion ($81.2.74 billion), from $10.32 billion in just four years (2015), meaning that the country would have to commit half of its foreign earnings to servicing its current level of indebtedness.
He explained that the current budget out of which Nigeria spends 25 percent to service debt “is not the country’s total earning; a lot of it is also borrowing”.
“I do not need the brain of any genius to conclude that those who use statistics to dig us deeper into debt are our enemies: statistics can be used to serve any purpose, and that is why Winston Churchill talked of lies, damn lies and statistics, meaning statistics can be made master of lies.”
He has been very critical of governments since he left office after completing two terms of four years each as a civilian president in 2007.
Source: Guardian Newspapers
