{"id":199832,"date":"2020-03-08T17:39:21","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T16:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=199832"},"modified":"2020-03-08T17:39:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T16:39:49","slug":"buharis-22-7bn-loan-different-from-what-you-saw-during-pdp-years-bmo-tells-nigerians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/?p=199832","title":{"rendered":"Buhari’s $22.7bn loan different from what you saw during PDP years – BMO tells Nigerians"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has told Nigerians that the $22.7bn loan approved by the Senate is one that will bridge the country\u2019s infrastructure gap and launch it into the league of nations with top-class infrastructure at the shortest possible time.<\/p>\n

BMO said that the loan is tied to projects that have a direct economic impact on the lives of average Nigerians.<\/p>\n

In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, and made available to DAILY POST on Sunday, BMO said this is unlike what Nigerians witnessed in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise that many Nigerians who lived through the 16-year misrule of PDP are apprehensive about the just approved external borrowing plan, but we make bold to say that things would be done differently this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cA cursory look through the details of the approved loan would reveal that every single one of it is tied to one infrastructural project or the other, ranging from power to railway lines and even education reforms and social welfare schemes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is different from what many Nigerians knew about the PDP years where foreign loans were simply for budget support and ended up being used to pay salaries, as explained by a one-time finance minister or looted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that is why the opposition party came up with a lame reaction to the Senate approval in which it claimed the request was \u2018brimming with unexplained, obscure, over-bloated and questionable subheads\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we wonder how a party that had the opportunity to transform the nation\u2019s landscape at a time of high oil receipts could glibly dismiss an approval for loan for, amongst others, the Lagos-Kano Railway Modernisation Project (Ibadan-Kano Segment Double Track); Coastal Railway Project (Calabar-Port Harcourt-Onne Deep Sea Port Segment); and even the East-West Road Project that was used by PDP leaders as a drain pipe for slush fund between 2006 and 2015?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat many Nigerians do not realise is that the 8th Senate approved about $6bn of the original $29bn loan request in 2018 which the Buhari administration has been using for projects including the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway that it was tied to.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have no doubt that when all these projects are delivered, they will go a long way to expand the nation\u2019s production base, empower millions of Nigerians through job-creation, create convenience of living, boost Ease of Doing Business as well as increase the country\u2019s GDP and nation\u2019s income, year to year, which will, of course, pave way for increased revenue to pay back the loan,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n

It also commended the Senate for pushing back attempts by the opposition to put a cog in the wheel of the process of approving the loan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clearly an attempt to continue what the previous Senate leadership did when it opted to play politics with what should have been seen as a national economic development agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe PDP agenda, since the Bukola Saraki years as Senate President, was to stop President Buhari from claiming credit for bridging the country\u2019s infrastructure deficit in his tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Senate, under the present leadership of Ahmad Lawan, waded through all the landmines of frivolous points of orders to ensure that the loan request scaled through and we know for certain that Nigerians would not forget him when those projects are finally in place\u201d.<\/p>\n

The group assured Nigerians that President Buhari has a responsibility to bequeath a working country with laudable infrastructure even though he inherited one with decrepit and insufficient infrastructure.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has told Nigerians that the $22.7bn loan approved by the Senate is one that will bridge the country\u2019s infrastructure gap and launch it into the league of nations with top-class infrastructure at the shortest possible time. BMO said that the loan is tied to projects that have a direct economic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":199833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[2658,2531,41,13097],"class_list":["post-199832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-a","tag-bmo","tag-buhari","tag-loan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/199833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arewa.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}