Finance Ministry Only Accumulating Debts And Loans Under Buhari – HURIWA

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has blasted the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari for accumulating several foreign loans since it came into power.

HURIWA in a statement on Friday, mocked the Buhari government, submitting that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning should be renamed as the Federal Ministry for Foreign Loans and Debts Accumulation.

The group said this in a statement titled ‘Rename Finance Minister To Minister Of Foreign Loans Collection:- HURIWA Tells President Buhari’ which was signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the group’s Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf.

The group was reacting to the recently approved loan request by the Senate for the President to borrow ₦2,343,387,942,848, to part-finance the 2021 federal budget.

It also described the Federal Executive Council (FEC) as weak, noting that despite the huge loans, the Buhari government has only succeeded in plunging more Nigerians into poverty.

HURIWA said, “We honestly think that the President should table before his weak Federal Executive Council the proposal for a change of name of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to the Federal Ministry for Foreign Loans and Debts Accumulation.

“This is because Nigerians have come to see that the Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed does nothing else than inundating Nigerians with the bad news of the constant requests from all kinds of places around the world for external Loans which are actually not been utilized to grow the economy or advance the living conditions of Nigerians but these huge loans are used to service the ballooning costs of running government and paying juicy allowances to Federal government officials.”

The rights group also accused the current National Assembly led by Senate President, Ahmad Lawan; as well as House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila of being a rubber stamp for the executive in acquiring foreign loans.

HURIWA also lamented that whereas most nations of the world are concentrating their economic and national planning efforts towards boosting the productivity of their citizens through industrialization and maintenance of public works and social infrastructures, “the federal and state governments in Nigeria are in the bonanza of collecting foreign credit facilities and loans so as to finance the ostentatious political lifestyles of the politicians in the corridors of power”.

“This to is is the new kind of enslavement which must be resisted. Whereas these government officials collect loans and fritter to find their expensive lifestyles, millions of Nigerians have become impoverished over time.

“Infact only two years back, Nigeria became the home to over 90 million absolutely poor citizens and the poverty capital of the World even whilst the nation is still very rich in terms of mineral and crude oil resources whose revenues are looted heartlessly by officials,” the statement added.