•Bagos and Tinubu
A former House of Representatives member Dachung Bagos has questioned Nigeria’s borrowings, wondering how the country is going to pay back.
President Bola Tinubu recently sent a ₦1.77 trillion ($2.2b) loan request to the National Assembly.
Days after the move, the Senate approved the request, prompting questions from many Nigerians including Bagos who represented Jos South/Jos East.
“You are collecting loans, where are the templates? What are the templates for repayment of those loans? We are not a producing nation. We are not industrialised. We are not an exporting nation,” he said last night on Channels Television.
“So, a lot of issues are wrong with our loans. You borrow to take breakfast, borrow to take lunch, borrow to take dinner every day, borrow to pay your children’s school fees, borrow to do every single thing. How are you going to pay those loans?”
The former lawmaker said the country’s borrowing ratio is getting high and believes with the tax reforms by President Tinubu expected to come into full swing next, Nigerians may be burdened.
“Today we are talking about the tax reforms which means there are going to be more tax burdens on Nigerians from next year,” Bagos said.
“From my last calculation, our borrowing ratio is almost getting to 10% per year or biannually. So, if we are getting to that level of almost 10%, it is very dangerous to us as a country.”
The loan is part of a fresh external borrowing plan to partially finance the N9.7 trillion budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year.
The fresh loan is expected to stretch the amount spent on debt servicing by the Federal Government. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said that it costs the Federal Government $3.58 billion to service foreign debt in the first nine months of the year.
