The Kwara State Government under the control of the All Progressives Congress and the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party, in the state, have disagreed on the level of indebtedness of the state government.
While the PDP maintained that the state government’s debt had risen to N100bn, the government said that it took loans which included a N27bn bond to uplift the infrastructural facilities in the state.
The PDP governorship candidate for the 2023 election, Alhaji Yaman Abdullah, while fielding questions from reporters during a visit to the Correspondent Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists in Ilorin on Tuesday, lamented over the alleged huge debt incurred by the state under the current administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.
Abdullah stated, “A governor is elected to create more money from what is given to him; he is expected to be creative and not to borrow recklessly in such a manner as to plunge future generations into debt.
“As we speak, Kwara is indebted to an amount over N100bn and we service debt by as much as N1.3bn per month.”
However, the Special Adviser on Political Communications to the Governor, Alhaji Bashir Adigun, in a reaction said Governor AbdulRazaq was rebuilding collapsed infrastructure left behind by the 16 years of misrule of the PDP in the state.
Adigun said, “All over the world, governments and corporate institutions lean on creditors for greater investments. Besides, it is only government or institution that can repay loans that can successfully source funds from the capital market, especially when committed to developmental purposes.
“Unlike the PDP era when such loan was used for their aggrandisement, AbdulRazaq is leveraging on loans to create a brighter future for the young people of Kwara State.
“The loans obtained were to fix infrastructure in the state.”
Adigun, however, advised the PDP candidate to face the programme of his campaign and not dissipate energy on the bond obtained to source funds for the development of the state, adding “We are amused by the repeated impulsive statements of the PDP governorship candidate on the bond obtained by the state government to rebuild critical infrastructure in the state.”
