President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, September 15, finally lifted the lids on why his government resorted to borrowing.
The Nigerian leader, during a virtual meeting with members of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), said the need to build infrastructure and attract investments has made him take loans.
Buhari held a crucial meeting with the PEAC members at the State House in Abuja on Tuesday, September 15, amid the financial crisis the Nigerian economy is currently facing, further aggravated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
All members of the council, including its chairman Prof Doyin Salami and the council’s secretary Prof Ode Ojowu and vice-chairman Mohammed Sagagi, were at the meeting.
Former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Prof Chukwuma Soludo, Bismark Rewane and Mohammed Salisu were also at the meeting presided over by the president.
Minister of finance, budget and national planning, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, incumbent CBN Governor Godwin Emiefiele and the minister of humanitarian services and disaster management, Sadiya Farouq attended the meeting physically.
Buhari, who noted that Nigeria is not in its deserved place in Africa due to lack of attraction to investors, said his government was borrowing money to address some infrastructural deficit and mak the country the giant again.
The president also maintained that agriculture is the only solution of the problem of unemployment among the teeming legion of Nigerian youths.
“We have so many challenges with infrastructure. We just have to take loans to do roads, rail and power, so that investors will find us attractive and come here to put their money.
“For us to bounce back to productivity, especially in agriculture, the unemployed with many of them uneducated had to be persuaded to go into agriculture,” Buhari said.
