Nigeria Must Borrow To Pay Contractors, Revive Economy – Oyegun

John Odigie-Oyegun

The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, John Odigie-Oyegun, has defended the borrowing plans of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, saying borrowing is inevitable in view of the current economic realities in the country.

Mr. Odigie-Oyegun said Nigeria must borrow to invest in infrastructure and grow the economy.

The APC Chairman spoke on Sunday night after receiving a lifetime achievement award presented to him by the Warri Choral Society during a classical music concert the Society held in his honour at the Muson Center in Lagos.

Mr. Odigie-Oyegun assured that the borrowings would not be used to pay salaries.

“If you read the newspapers, you hear the president being advised to pump money into the economy. So the question is where is the money coming from? Simple! It has to come from somewhere including borrowing — both internal and external. To get this country going again, you have to pay contractors. Some contractors have not been paid for four, five, six, 10 years.

“So long as the borrowing is done not to pay salaries which the President Buhari administration will not do, but invested to create opportunities, solve our problems of power and things like that.

“To allow people to have money to consume, to buy goods, to pay for services so that factories can produce. So it is that cycle. We must kick-start the economy and to kick-start it will need money, lots of money,” the APC National Chairman told journalists after the concert.

Mr. Odigie-Oyegun said the ongoing fight against corruption was necessary for the country to make progress.

“That is a task (anti-corruption) that must be accomplished because it is at the bottom of all the ills of this country. When you are corrupt, you are immoral, when you are corrupt, you don’t have ethics, when you are corrupt, you lose the distinction between right and wrong. When you are corrupt, even life does not mean anything to you. So, we must get it under serious control for this nation to have hope of making any progress,” he said.