The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, Sunday, lambasted President Muhammadu Buhari for the planned donation of $500,000 and materials to Guinea Bissau.
Mr. Abubakar, who last week cautioned the Buhari administration from the planned sale of national assets to fund the 2019 budget, blamed Nigeria’s economic failure on profligacy.
The former vice president queried why a nation named as the world headquarters of extreme poverty would donate her resources instead of using them to solve pressing domestic problems.
“This is the same government that is so cash-strapped that it has so far borrowed ₦13 trillion in three years putting our economy in even greater peril,” Mr. Abubakar said.
“How prudent is it to go about taking loans from whosoever cares to lend you money and then turn around to give out the monies even when your own people are suffering the worst form of poverty they have ever endured?
“We call on the Buhari administration to cut their coat according to their cloth. These huge loans they are collecting, only to squander it, will be repaid by future generations and limit the nation’s ability to invest in projects that will get Nigeria working again.”
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Mr. Abubakar said with millions of internally displaced persons all over the country, it was questionable for the government to think of donating to people in another country.
“If you cannot adequately support your own people in dire need, what is the wisdom in crossing borders to support others?
“We are therefore concerned to see this government piling on debt and then squandering it away without any consideration for the needs of her people,” Mr. Abubakar said.
Having served in a government that paid off the country’s debt in the past; Mr Atiku said he can question Mr. Buhari’s profligacy and imprudence.
