In what may seem as last-minute efforts to justify the country’s humongous debt profile under him by the opposition, President Muhammadu Buhari has asked Nigerians not to focus on the debts but to see what his administration has achieved in assets and investments.
According to Buhari, his administration doubled Nigeria’s stock of infrastructure to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from about 20 percent to over 40 percent.
In a statement posted on Twitter on Saturday, the president said the growth is “no small undertaking”
“So, as we look at Nigeria’s debt profile, I urge us to also look at the assets and investment profiles, some of which was paid for by debt and some by investment income.
“The wealth and prosperity of many nations, especially post-war Europe, was built largely on infrastructure and on debt redeemed over decades. Some of the projects are commercially self-liquidating,” he said.
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The President added that without investing in infrastructure, the road out of poverty is a much tougher one.
Information Nigeria reports that the Debt Management Office (DMO) had said Nigeria’s total public debt reached N46.25 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022.
Director-General of DMO, Patience Oniha, said the debt stock is increasing due to a combination of several factors, including borrowings and the continued issuing of promissory notes by the federal government.
Oniha said several loans have been contracted from multilateral and bilaterals, while the Federal Government keeps issuing promissory notes to settle obligations for which it does not really have the revenue.
A promissory note is a legal instrument through which one party promises in writing to pay a sum of money to the other, either at a fixed or determinable future time or on demand of the payee, under specific terms and conditions.
