The President, Vision Africa International and the Co-Chair of the Interfaith Dialogue Forum for Peace (IDFP), Bishop Sunday Ndukwo Onuoha, has cautioned the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government against further borrowing from both international and national financial organisations in order not to mortgage the future of the country’s children.
He advised the government to desist from further borrowing in order not to put the future of Nigerians in danger.
Bishop Onuoha, a Global Peace Award Winner in 2013, while giving his advice observed that one of the old habits that the government should shun this year is continuous borrowings from foreign countries.
He noted that borrowing appears sweet but always hard to pay back.
According to him, “One thing about borrowing, is that while doing it, it appears enjoyable, but where the problem sets in is when you don’t have any hope of paying back or when you haven’t invested wisely with the borrowed money, hence problem may ensue at this point.”
The Methodist Bishop enjoined the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government not to mortgage the future of the younger generation who may be left to service these debts due to its gravity, saying that it would be unfair to punish them by constantly borrowing without investing wisely to their advantage.
He added, “Borrowing may not be a bad idea if you invest and deploy such loans judiciously, but in the Nigerian context, where there is recession, a lot may not be achieved in terms of pay back because those monies go into servicing of old debts without plans to invest.”
Bishop Onuoha advised the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to invest in the youth who have the potential to unlock grey areas to the benefit of the entire country, pointing out that investing in them would take care of restiveness and all manner of agitations witnessed in the country in recent times.
He also called for massive investment in agriculture, arguing that before the advent of the oil boom, agriculture was the mainstay, sustaining the country and providing jobs for millions of Nigerians.
He called on the Federal Government to invest more in agriculture now that the price of oil is down globally.
