The Democratic Front (TDF) has fired back at the Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his criticism of the Tinubu administration’s borrowing policy, describing his comments as mischievous, intellectually distasteful, and driven purely by political self-interest.
TDF, in a statement by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, said Atiku was applying narrow, short-sighted metrics in assessing the federal government’s borrowings and urged Nigerians to disregard him entirely.
The group anchored its defence of the administration’s debt policy on an analysis by the Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), which it said showed that Nigeria requires a minimum of $14.2billion in annual infrastructure spending over ten consecutive years to close its infrastructure gap
TDF challenged Atiku to say where such funds should come from without a massive increase in taxes.
“We believe that the decision by the President Bola Tinubu administration to borrow for Nigeria’s infrastructural development is largely informed by the realisation that inadequate infrastructure, coupled with the exponential rise in the country’s population, is responsible for the poor level of productivity,” the group said, adding that this was “the sad reality which Atiku mischievously failed to comprehend.”
The group pushed back against what it called a deliberate attempt by the former Vice President to obscure the purpose of the foreign loans, insisting they are tied to specific, named mega projects, including the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, the Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway, the Lagos Green Line Phase 1A, the Kano State Metro City Rail and the Kaduna State Light Rail System. The group argued those projects would generate returns sufficient to repay the loans directly.
Recalling the past record of Vice President under former President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, TDF said the government spent only $3.5billion annually on capital projects despite rising crude oil revenues, resulting in worsening infrastructure, power outages, and decaying roads.
The group went further, accusing Atiku of complicity in the alleged waste of $18billion in Paris Club debt relief funds and a further $16billion said to have been spent on power projects that were never completed, a combined figure of $34billion, at a time the country urgently needed infrastructure investment.
“We wonder how the former Vice President found the spine to condemn President Tinubu for embarking on the courageous and commendable route to reducing Nigeria’s infrastructural deficit with foreign loans that are strictly tied to mega national projects, despite the clear reality of the inexcusable failure to build critical infrastructure, by the government he served,” TDF said.
Citing IMPI’s policy statement, the group said the Tinubu administration is the biggest spender on infrastructure of any Nigerian government in the past 25 years, with no administration since 1999 having spent up to $8billion annually on infrastructure before now.
TDF described Atiku’s language in criticising President Tinubu’s borrowings as irresponsible and intemperate and attributed it to personal frustration with what it called the President’s exceptional performance in resetting the Nigerian economy.
The group closed by urging the Nigerian electorate to continue rejecting Atiku Abubakar at the polls.
