Nigerian Governors during the last administration shared the country’s wealth among themselves in billions of Naira despite pleas from the finance minister of the administration, Okonjo-Iweala to save the funds instead. This was revealed by the former governor of Anambra State Peter Obi while he appeared on Channels Television to analyse the state of the economy.
Mr. Peter Obi recalled how Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala had practically begged the state governors during the Goodluck Jonathan Administration to save for the future through the Sovereign Wealth Fund which was started to save excess funds for the country.
Most of the Governors refused and insisted that the excess funds be shared among the states; a couple of state governors who are currently serving as federal ministers took the Federal Government to Court over the matter.
According to Peter Obi;
“Over the years, things have gone wrong, I remember Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala crying every day to governors to save these monies and invest in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), a programme that was meant to save fund for the nation to cater for a rainy day as presently experienced.
All of us disagreed and said let’s share it. Some governors even went to court to get the federal government to allow them to share the money among themselves.”
Peter Obi also used the medium to advise the federal government to control its borrowing spree as it was plunging Nigeria Deeper into poverty.
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“Borrowing for consumption will not grow the economy; it gets to a state where you can’t control it. The amount being used to service our debt today is high, we use almost 60% to service them and we are borrowing more, it’s escalating. World Bank and IMF have warned Nigeria against rising debt.
You are borrowing money and the issues that it is supposed to affect are not coming down. Unemployment is worsening. Our unemployment rate moved from 14.8% to 18.8% this year, which means more people have lost their jobs.
The economy is shrinking, the entire capital votes this year ‘is’ borrowed, and we have existing debts already. Poverty is increasing, out of school children have moved from 10 million to almost 12 million,” Peter Obi reiterated.