Vice-President Kashim Shettima has again blamed erstwhile President Muhammadu Buhari, his party man, for the unprecedented economic calamity Nigeria and its people are enduring consequent upon the removal of the petrol subsidy and floating of the naira amid several years of unsustainable borrowings by Mr Buhari’s regime.
Despite several prominent figures opposing Mr Buhari’s wayward economic policies and wanton borrowings, he was egged on by many of his acolytes as even former President Olusegun Obasanjo could not prevail on him to change the nation’s economic course heading for the precipice.
More aptly, on Thursday, Mr Shettima admitted that what Mr Buhari left his successor, President Bola Tinubu, was a “death sentence” economic crisis.
From the get-go, Mr Tinubu’s economic steps faltered, plunging citizens of Africa’s most populous nation into historic stagflation and abject poverty. The president and his team have continued to harp on the message of hope for a better tomorrow while Nigerians seek immediate remedy to the starvation and poverty that assail them, with their purchasing power eroded.
“The year before we took office, Nigeria’s debt service-to-revenue ratio had grown to 111.8%. The anticipated debt crisis may sound like fancy economic jargon to the man on the street, but you and I are in a better position to understand how such miscalculations have played out in other countries. It’s an economic death sentence,” Mr Shettima said.
The Nigerian vice-president made this statement explaining the reasons for the Tinubu-led government’s removal of fuel subsidy while speaking at the 2nd Chronicle Roundtable organised by 21st Century Media Services and held at Ladi Kwali Hall, Abuja Continental Hotel, Abuja.
Lamenting Nigeria’s debt crisis under Mr Buhari’s regime, Mr Shettima said, “In plain terms, our debt servicing was such that if you earned, say, N100,000, the entirety of the money wasn’t only paid to your debtor; you were forced to borrow an additional N11,800 to pay the debtor. How do you intend to survive this, and how many more loans before you become a pariah?”
Mr Buhari left office last May. His predecessor, Mr Tinubu, will clock one year in the saddle on May 29 amid a cauldron of chaos of economic and security crises.
“Can we continue to service external debts with 90% of our revenue? It is a path to destruction. It is not sustainable,” said Mr Tinubu last August at the annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association. “We must make the very difficult changes that are necessary for our country to get up from slumber and be respected among the great nations of the world.