Ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, while making a keynote speech at the “Why I am Alive” campaign on Friday in Lagos said that Nigeria was on the verge of becoming bankrupt.

According to Obasanjo, the way the Nigerian Government is amassing debts has the potential to leave a huge burden for future generations, who would be under obligation to pay such loans.

According to him, as of 2015, Nigeria’s total external debt was about $10.32bn. he claimed that by March 2019, the country’s external debt had skyrocketed to $81.274bn.

Such a situation talks about an impending bankruptcy. No entity can survive while devoting 50 per cent of its revenue to debt servicing.

It has recently been pointed out that in 2018 that total debt servicing took over 60 per cent of government revenue.

What’s more, we are not doing enough to address the fundamental, deep-seated and structural challenges that inhibit the expansion of our economy,

Obasanjo said.

The ex-president added that to worsen matters, the current administration was currently seeking to add another $29.6bn loan to “our already overburdened debt portfolio.”

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.