Debt profile: PDP accuses Osinbajo of deliberate distortion of facts

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused Vice President Yemi Osinbajo of deliberately distorting facts on the nation’s debt profile, which escalated to a frightening proportion under the Buhari administration.

The party alleged that Prof Osinbajo falsified Nigeria’s financial templates just to divert attention from the failures of the Buhari administration as well as to absolve the government of blame in the accumulation of debts under its watch.

The spokesperson of PDP, Kola Olgbondiyan at a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday said it is an incontrovertible fact that the Buhari administration has accumulated more debts that any other administration in the history of country.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had said that the Buhari-led administration inherited a debt of $63 billion and has only borrowed $10 billion since it took office in 2015.

He made the disclosure in Ibadan on Saturday during the 9th Public Lecture of Sigma Club at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan.

Delivering a lecture Osinbajo entitled ‘Developing the Nation Through Youth Empowerment’, Osinbajo said “In 2010, our debt was $35 billion, $41 billion in 2011, $48 billion in 2012, $64 billion in 2013, $67.7 billion in 2014, $63.8 billion in 2015, $57.8 billion in 2016, $70 billion in 2017 and $73 billion in 2018” he said.

“The nation’s debt as at today was $73 billion, an increment of $10 billion from the $63 billion inherited in 2015.”

He said the nation’s oil earnings was $119.8 billion between 1990 to 1998, $481 billion from 1999 to 2009 and $381 billion from 2010 to 2014, while the present administration has only earned $112 billion from June 2015.

“The earnings from oil from 2010 to 2014 were the highest recorded in the history of the country. This is a period when the price of oil per barrel sold from $100 to $114.

Debunking Osinbajo’s claims, the PDP said the Vice President forgot that Nigerians are aware that between 2016 to 2017, under President Buhari, Nigeria’s annual borrowing was about N3.7 trillion as against the N1.04 trillion annual borrowing perimeter between 2008 to 2015 adding that between 1999 to 2007 the annual borrowing perimeter was as low as N96 billion naira.

“To deceive the public and divert attention to the alarming borrowing spree of the Buhari administration, the APC-led Federal Government converted domestic debt borrowed in naira under its watch, to the US dollar so that the very high exchange rate will make the domestic debt look smaller in dollars.

This is a deceptive picture because domestic debt was accumulated in naira and not in dollar.

“It is important to point out that the domestic debts of states were not part of the data base until 2013.

Therefore, a sincere comparison of debts over the years should have focused on total external debt and Federal Government’s domestic debt.

“In view of the above, if Vice President Osinbajo, a professor of law was not being economical with the truth, the appropriate comparison should be to have the domestic debt in naira and convert the external debt to naira to get national debt for each of the years, which show that the Buhari administration has accumulated more debts that any other administration.

“An appropriate comparison will further show that the annual growth rate of public debt was only 0.44 percent under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, 20.14 percent under the Yar’Adua and Jonathan administration and 29.6 percent under President Buhari”, said the party.

The PDP charged the Vice President to refrain from bandying figures that he cannot substantiate, in an attempt to score cheap political point.

The party said Nigerians have moved beyond the lies, deception, propaganda and beguilement of the APC, saying ” It amounts to a huge disservice to our nation if a person of such high office of the Vice President will allow himself to be used to distort figures to deceive Nigerians”.