Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party on February 25th, has challenged the Federal Government to reveal the deficit the country has accrued under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu.
On Monday, Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser, bemoaned the fact that the current government took over a bankrupt nation from the past administration of Muhammadu Buhari.
He claims that the Tinubu-led administration’s revenue is being utilised to make up for what was plundered from the nation.
However, in a series of tweets via his profile on X, the former Anambra State governor said on Thursday that the FG should disclose the deficit inherited from the previous All Progressives Congress administration; a move that will portray its level of transparency and accountability.
Peter Obi faulted the Buhari government for failing to disclose the deficit inherited when it claimed the same in 2015 against the preceding Goodluck Jonathan-led government.
The tweets read, “I just read yesterday, a widely publicised story from the present APC-led Federal Government saying that they inherited a bankrupt nation from their predecessor APC administration. But the story failed to disclose what they inherited which had qualified us for bankruptcy status.
“Recall that the previous APC government made a similar claim in 2015 against the PDP administration that handed over to them without telling the nation what it actually inherited.
“Rather, they took our debt profile from N12.6 trillion in 2015 to N87 trillion in 2023 when they left office without improving on any indices of development: Education, Health, Poverty eradication, and Security.”
The LP presidential candidate further stressed the significance of spending public funds on development sectors like education, security and healthcare, among others.
“Instead, the condition of the nation on every development index got worse, leading to the present sad state. Nigerians know things are bad, and they experience it daily. What they now want to hear regularly are measurable and verifiable steps to improve the situation.
“Also, the alarm raised by the government about the bad state of our finances raises questions about the rationale behind some expenditure items in the supplementary budget recently signed into law,” he stated.
