The oppositionn People Democratic Party (PDP) has accused Vice President Yemi Osinbajo of falsifying a financial template to distort Nigeria’s debt profile “in desperation to divert attention from the failures of the Buhari’s administration.”
In a statement made available to press men by the publicity secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said that Nigerians are aware of the fact that the Buhari administration has accumulated more debts than any other administration since 1999.
Part of the statement read:
“Osinbajo’s Distortion On Debt Profile
The PDP also wishes to bring to the attention of Nigerians to the deliberate distortion of facts by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo regarding the nation’s debt profile, which escalated to a frightening proportion under the Buhari administration.
“In the desperation to divert attention from the failures of the Buhari administration, Vice President Osinbajo falsified financial templates to argue that this government has no blame in the accumulation of debts under its watch.
“It is an incontrovertible fact that the Buhari administration has accumulated more debts than any other administration in the history of our nation.
“Our dear Vice President forgot the Nigerians are aware that between 2016 to 2017, under President Buhari, our annual borrowing was about N3.7 trillion as against the N1.04 trillion annual borrowing perimeter between 2008 to 2015. Between 1999 to 2007 the annual borrowing perimeter was as low as N96 billion naira.
“To deceive the public and divert attention to the alarming borrowing spree of the Buhari administration, the APC-led Federal Government converted domestic debt borrowed in naira under its watch, to the US dollar so that the very high exchange rate will make the domestic debt look smaller in dollars. This is a deceptive picture because domestic debt was accumulated in naira and not in dollar.
“It is important to point out that the domestic debts of states were not part of the data base until 2013. Therefore, a sincere comparison of debts over the years should have focused on total external debt and Federal Government’s domestic debt.
“In view of the above, if Vice President Osinbajo, a professor of law was not being economical with the truth, the appropriate comparison should be to have the domestic debt in naira and convert the external debt to naira to get national debt for each of the years, which show that the Buhari administration has accumulated more debts that any other administration.
“An appropriate comparison will further show that the annual growth rate of public debt was only 0.44 percent under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, 20.14 percent under the Yar’Adua and Jonathan administration and 29.6 percent under President Buhari.
“We therefore charge the Vice President to refrain from bandying figures that he cannot substantiate, in an attempt to score cheap political point. Nigerians have moved beyond the lies, deception, propaganda and beguilement of the APC. It amounts to a huge disservice to our nation if a person of such high office of the Vice President will allow himself to be used to distort figures to deceive Nigerians,” the statement added.
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