Tinubu’s $20 billion Dollar Election Eve Borrowing, In the Midst of Massive Diversion of Subsidy Proceeds

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria last week after the APC Kaduna flag off rally wrote to the National Assembly, Nigeria’s rubber stamp legislature, requesting for further loan of $20 billion dollars and #1 billion pounds .The purpose of the Loan is to expand critical infrastructure in electricity/power, transportation, agriculture, healthcare, education, water supply, security, employment generation, and public financial management reforms.

This is in the midst of massive embezzlement of subsidy funds by the 33 out of 36 governors of the ruling party who hijacked his Renewed Hope Agenda of Bola Tinubu and turned it to Renewed Looting of Subsidy Funds.

A nation whose debt profile rose from N12 trillion in 2015 to N87 trillion in 2023 under an 8 year subsidy regime of President Muhammadu Buhari, toN149 trillion {N72 trillion naira) within 3 years of Tinubu presidency when abolition of subsidy and multiple foreign exchange rate regimes has freed up critical funds for infrastructural development.

President Tinubu borrowing such a homogenous amount at this point in the nation chequered history, is a disservice to the fiscal discipline expected of a nation where more than half its 250 million population is living under the grips of poverty.

President Tinubu has consistently shown total lack of will power to hold state actors responsible for previous borrowed funds since the three years he has been on the saddle. He has also failed to hold his governors whom he gave the proceeds of the subsidy funds, responsible for the massive looting taking place within their respective domain.

Nigeria does not need another loan of any kind. The controversy of the loan row between former governor of Anambra State, and prominent opposition figure Mr Peter Obi and the current governor, and former Central Bank Chief, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, stems from financial misunderstanding over the portfolios and repayment liabilities of every government loan.

Peter Obi borrowed $127 million dollars external loan and despite years of servicing the loan by successive governors over 12 years, the outstanding balance still remains $92 million dollars being deducted from the FAAC allocation of Anambra State.

Peter Obi borrowed money just like every other governor of his time, and twelve years later, the borrowed sum has yielded maturing liabilities impeding on the financial commitment of the state government. The said amount, still high in volume is not easy for any responsible government to just continue to liquidate.

Therefore, President Tinubu’s excessive loan is mortgaging the future of the nation. It would tomorrow pose another controversy for any incoming regime after 2031, be it Atiku, Kwankwaso, EL-Rufai , Ribadu or Wike,Jonathan Obi or whomsoever the saddle would fall upon at later time.

There are no justifications for the loan and I plead with the rubber stamp National Assembly to reject this loan appeal.

A loan portfolio of N72 trillion naira within three years, is a frightening mortgage of our national heritage. The Presidents economic advisers are misdirecting the fiscal terrain of the nation. Instead of more loans, he should query those who mismanaged earlier loans.

President Tinubu should instead seize swaths of the allocations of FAAC from January till May 2027, and diver it to the critical infrastructure, to save the nation from the massive looting going on among state governors. He should use the Senator Akpabio led rubber stamp National Assembly or another executive order to stop the looting governors from liquidating the FAAC allocation especially from January, 2027.

I advise President Tinubu to apply the prudential fiscal discipline that saw him through as governor of Lagos State when former President Olusegun Obasanjo seized the state allocation for four years, from 2003-2007 and apply it to the national sphere.

Without fear of sounding immodest, I, Obinna Akukwe, do sincerely see this new request for loan as unnecessary and the integrity of the disbursement of the loan may not be guaranteed as President Tinubu faces a populace majority of who believe that his government has performed below expectations.

This last minute election eve borrowings should be jettisoned while the FAAC allocations should be withheld from January, and a law that would divert it to emergency services should be enacted.

(Rev Obinna Akukwe, Columnist, Activist, Cleric, Financial and Management Consultant,[email protected])