Afe Babalola, Nigerian lawyer and founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), has stressed the need for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to seek debt relief for Nigeria from the country’s international creditors.
By so doing, he urged that Tinubu beckons on former President Olusegun Obasanjo to advise on how get it done.
Speaking on Sunday during the institution’s 6th Induction Ceremony of the 2023 graduating set of the College of Medical and Health Sciences, Babalola, said if Nigeria does not seek debt relief, the country’s economy may collapse with the way things are going.
The legal luminary further lamented that the loans accrued by the government have unfortunately been embezzled by some private individuals.
While decrying the sorry state of the economy, he noted that the frustration of the people are responsible for the protests across some major cities in the country.
His words: “Nigeria is one of the heaviest debtors in the world, I have written articles about it, let us investigate how we came to several trillions of dollars, what do we spend it on? I can assure you, these money are pocketed by those who said they collected it.
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“Let us call on Obasanjo again to advise the present government. When we were in serious trouble in the 90s, after he took over, he went round all the creditors and begged them, one, to peg the interest, two, to even reduce the indebtedness and today, we are better for it.
“Unless we do that, this indebtedness will cripple this country and it will lead to anything. I have seen people especially, in the North who are agitating because of the fact that the naira is getting worse, food prices are high, no employment, and those who get it are not paid. Something has to be done about it.”
Speaking further, Babalola condemned the recent killings of two traditional rulers in Ekiti State.
He urged the government to intensify efforts at tackling insecurity so that farmers can access their farms without fear and enable all Nigerians to be producers of crops by investing in agriculture.
He said, “Monarchs are killed, it is an unusual development, so, what is behind all these is the fact that we have no money, our money has no value, our currency is as worthless as toilet paper, something has to be done about naira and productivity.
“Farmers have left their farms now because of kidnappers, something has to be done about kidnapping and farmers have to be encouraged to go back to their farms.”
