Worried by the several foreign loans the Buhari administration has collected since assuming office in 2015, the Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has asked President Buhari to rename the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to the Federal Ministry for Foreign Loans and Debts Accumulation.
In a statement titled ‘Rename Finance Minister To Minister Of Foreign Loans Collection:- HURIWA Tells President Buhari’, and signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and its Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, said the amount of loans being requested for by this administration is becoming worrisome. The statement was in reaction to the recently approved request by the Senate for the President to borrow N2,343,387,942,848, to part-finance the 2021 federal budget size of N13trn.
“We honestly think that the President should table before his weak Federal Executive Council the proposal for a change of name of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to the Federal Ministry for Foreign Loans and Debts Accumulation.
This is because Nigerians have come to see that the Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed does nothing else than inundating Nigerians with the bad news of the constant requests from all kinds of places around the world for external Loans which are actually not been utilised to grow the economy or advance the living conditions of Nigerians but these huge loans are used to service the ballooning costs of running government and paying juicy allowances to Federal government officials.”
The group accused the government of collecting foreign loans so as to finance their ostentatious political lifestyles.
”The federal and state governments in Nigeria are in the bonanza of collecting foreign credit facilities and loans so as to finance the ostentatious political lifestyles of the politicians in the corridors of power.
This is the new kind of enslavement which must be resisted. Whereas these government officials collect loans and fritter to fund their expensive lifestyles, millions of Nigerians have become impoverished over time.
Infact only two years back, Nigeria became the home to over 90 million absolutely poor citizens and the poverty capital of the World even whilst the nation is still very rich in terms of mineral and crude oil resources whose revenues are looted heartlessly by officials,” the statement read
The group also blasted the leadership of the National Assembly for always approving the loan requests.
