‘Okonjo-Iweala brought us out of debt but we are back there’ – Nigerians react to statement by Buhari’s former minister

Amina Mohammed, United Nations Deputy Secretary-general has said Nigeria’s current debt level is worrisome.

Mohammed, who was a minister in president Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet said this while speaking at  International Monetary, IMF, and UN working together conversation on Tuesday.

The former minister of environment said it took many years and a lot of efforts by former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to get the country out of debt but sadly, the country is back there.

In her words :

Public resources are always going to be important, and so is ODA and the private sector. But I think we still haven’t yet got quite the solution and I hope that the work that we do together will open up that space to think more on how to leverage that.

“As I was coming up from New York, some of the concerns that came up from the meeting we had in China just recently and reports that we have; the debt issues are really big, I mean, having experienced what it was for Ngozi (Okonjo-Iweala) to get debt relief.

“It took her a few years to convince people, and we are now back again in my country, with a level of debt that is worrying, but its happening all over. Africa, is that the way we want to go?

“I think we really need to sit down and have a better conversation about all the asks of a growing economy; that needs to be inclusive, it needs to succeed, because stability is needed more than ever today, across our countries and where we are working.”

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