Nigeria is now officially a borrower and a debtor country. Her foreign and domestic debts are now $51 billion according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). These debts are almost twice her yearly federal budget, about 20% of her yearly GDP of $273 billion and 50% of this nation's yearly oil revenue that is nearly $100 billion a year. Most of these debts are owned to the World Bank, Paris Club, African Development Bank and the rising China. Nigeria's debt has risen rapidly under the watch and the presidency of Jonathan Goodluck from $37 billion in June 2011 to $51 billion in June 2013, an increase of $14 billion or 36% in only two years. What is primarily responsible for this rising debt in the hands of Jonathan Goodluck? Why is Nigeria with an annual GDP of about $273 billion that produces and sells about 2.5 million barrels of oil a day and has an economy that grows at a yearly rate of 7.5% is still borrowing money all over the human universe just to run her government?
I have attempted below to point out all the major factors that are responsible for the Nigeria's addiction to a lifestyle of borrowing to live in 2013:(i) The unabated massive culture of official corruption perpetrated by the rogue Nigerian leaders and her officials or simply the culture of treasury looting. (ii) The mammoth mismanagement of our state resources by our corrupt leaders and officials by budgeting hundreds of millions of dollar annually for their own personal welfare, security votes, official and unofficial foreign trips, maintenance of our non-functioning foreign embassies, choice vacations and foreign medical trips of the Nigerian leaders and their families. (iii) Nigeria is using about 30% of her current federal budget to pay the salaries and the allowances of her 17,500 public elected and appointed officials (0.001% of all Nigerians) at all levels. A way of milking the nation dry in the name of public service and patriotism.
(iv) The government is currently spending about 25% of the federal budget on security that does not truly protect the life and the properties of all Nigerians in al reality. (v) The oil bunkering, massive smuggling of imported goods through our porous land and sea borders, huge tax evasion or loopholes that are practiced by the rich Nigerians and the powerful businessmen or corporations, numerous unpaid import duties or the evasion of the custom and the import duties that deny the Nigerian government billions of dollar in revenue annually. (vi) The so called foreign investment deals in the oil, gas, mining, telecommunication and shipping and aviation sectors that favor the foreign investors always and never the Nigerian nation in all reality.
In conclusion, this present status quo in Nigeria that turns this nation into a borrower or a debtor country that benefits only a handful of Nigerians by leaving behind the 160 million ordinary Nigerians helplessness, hopeless and totally excluded from the sharing of the Nigeria's national cake is not morally right and is not also practically sustainable in that format forever. It will soon fall apart. It is a matter of time. It is going to be like an ill wind that will blow nobody any good at the end of the day.
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