Nigeria's Borrowing must be for Production - Peter Obi
A former Governor of Anambra State and former VP aspirant under PDP, Peter Obi, has said that Nigeria is borrowing mainly for consumption instead of production, pushing many of its citizens to poverty. According to him, the nation cannot rise unless productivity is improved.
“Are you borrowing for productivity or are you borrowing for consumption? My worry here is that we are borrowing for consumption.
“I am saying that the country is not productive and there is nothing wrong in borrowing; if you are borrowing, then it shouldn’t be for consumption and that’s why more and more people are getting poorer.’’
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“These are critical areas we want to go into,” the statesman stressed, noting that Nigeria must do away with speculative growth that is given media hype without positively affecting the masses.
“That engine today is not being supported in Nigeria. Nigeria has a total of 40 million SMEs but there is not properly articulated fiscal and monetary policy to support the critical sector.
“The entire loan to the private sector in Nigeria today is about N30 trillion. Less than N1.5 trillion is going to SMEs. This is less than five per cent of the entire loan. This means Nigeria is not supporting its engine that can enhance the nation’s economic growth.
“The SMEs are the biggest employer of labour in many advanced countries of the world. We need fiscal monetary policies that would invest in this engine of growth in order to create jobs.”
These words are critical as oil business drops in Nigeria even as we continue to import crude products.
"Contextually, they are currently purchasing 1-2 million barrels per week, which is relatively lower than the 20 million barrels per month they bought before the pandemic. Additionally, Nigeria’s crude oil production plunged to a record low of 1.24 million barrels per day last month as a result of lingering disruptions at the key Forcados export terminal.... Another enemy of the naira is importation. The largest oil producer in Africa in the 2nd Quarter of 2021 imported lubricating oil, gas oil, and petrol at 68 billion, 152 billion, 782 billion naira respectively."
