By Victor Ahiuma-Young

Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, weekend in Lagos,expressed concern over Nigeria’s rising external debt profile, which the Debt Management Office, DMO, now puts at $9.38 billion, warning that excessive foreign loans that could mortgage Nigeria’s future to foreign creditors.

The Director-General of the DMO, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, had told newsmen in Abuja that the country’s domestic and foreign debt was now $66 billion dollars (over N10 trillion), the external component being $9.38 billion.

TUC in a statement by its President, Mr. Bobboi Bala Kaigama, lamented that while Nigeria celebrated with fanfare the external debt exit in 2005 under the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo, by December 2010, the external debt portfolio rose to $4.78 billion.

According to the statement, “So, if the foreign debt regime now stands at $9.38 billion, it follows that external debt profile has risen by about $5 billion i.e about 100% in less than four years.

This is very unfortunate more-so when the impact of the foreign loans are not being positively felt by the generality of the citizens. Nobody should be carried away by the argument that the country’s debt stock is still less than 26% of GDP, the so-called international standard.

”The fact of the matter is that the country went through hell when its debt stock was about $35 billion.  We should therefore be concerned that we are going back to where we were before.”

According to TUC, although the DMO stated that part of the loan was injected into the power sector, there was nothing on ground to show that electricity supply had improved because as at May 2014, the Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, stated that Nigeria was generating 3,800mw for about 170 million population whereas experts estimated that Lagos State alone needed about 15,000mw.

TUC President faulted claims by Dr. Nwankwo that part of the loan was also used to finance roads including Abuja International Airport Road that had not been completed for years and organised labour, the civil society groups, and other well-meaning Nigerians to rise up and ensure that the Federal Government stopped further foreign borrowing forthwith.

He said “We also demand that the Federal Government should curtail unnecessary expenditure, prune down the obscene emoluments of political office holders, and block other leakages through which billions of naira are looted from the Treasuries leaving virtually nothing for capital development.”

“We believe that if the enormous resources of the country are properly harnessed and prudently managed, there is more than enough wealth in Nigeria to go round and also build the type of societies we have in Europe, America, Asia.”