Former Governor of Anambra State and vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last
general election, Mr. Peter Obi, has lamented that Nigeria has a $90billion
(N28trillion) debt portfolio with nothing to show for it.
Obi stated this when he appeared as a guest speaker
on The Platform, a programme of The Covenant Place in Lagos on Tuesday with the
theme: ‘Redesigning the Nigerian Economy with New Ideas’, saying in 2017, the country spent over N1,6trillion to service debt and N2.9trillion to service
debt in 2018, yet, there’s nothing to show for it.
He lamented that while other nations borrow to
embark on developmental projects, Nigeria borrow to consume, a situation which he
said makes growth impossible. He said the problem is not about debt, “but what
you use your money to do.”
The former governor insisted that the money does
not impact on growth, which he said is a problem.
Obi noted why many people live in extreme poverty
in Nigeria than both China and India-the nations with the highest populations
in the world combined-adding that 98 million people in the Nigeria now live in
extreme poverty, a growth of 5 percent annually.
"Nigeria is home to the highest number of people
living in extreme poverty in the world. Every minute, six Nigerians fall into
extreme poverty," Obi disclosed.
He warned that with over 22 million young people in
their productive years unemployed, the country is like a keg of gunpowder on
the verge of exploding, and this "is worrisome," he said.
Also speaking at the event, Lagos State Governor,
Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, appealed to Lagosians for patience over the bad state
of roads in the state, saying the consistent rainfall since he was sworn in
about four months ago is slowing down rehabilitation/palliative work on the
roads.
Sanwo-Olu promised that there would be extensive
and massive rehabilitation of roads after the rainy seasons, and that all the
roads cannot be tackled at the same time.
The governor said it has been raining since he was
sworn in, and that bitumen does not work in the rain, so work on the roads is
being slowed down because of this.
He, however, assured Lagos resident that the state government
was still working day and night to remedy the state of the roads in the state.
Apart from bad roads, the governor said water,
small landmass and population explosion were responsible for traffic congestion
but that his government’s remedy for the traffic problem being experienced on a
daily basis was a multi-modal transportation system.
This he said involves developing the rail, water
transportation and bus transit system which the government is already working
on.
“On water transportation, we are encouraging the
building of a lot of jetties and we have just acquired 6-7 new passenger boats
that can take 60-70 passengers at a time”.
On commercial motor-cycle operators, the governor
said because he wants to give everybody a chance to be part of the state the development plan, the government is trying to harmonize and come up with a
regulation system for them.
“This is designed to know who they are, their
activities and how to manage them to ensure that they don’t add to the problem
of traffic flow in the state, we don’t want to disenfranchise anybody,”
Sanwo-Olu said.
The governor also disclosed that since his assumption
of office it is only in the education sector that he has given a major approval
for the recruitment of about 10, 000 teachers into the state public schools, a
process that is already on-going.
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