‘Path to destruction,’ Tinubu warns on external debt servicing

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President Bola Tinubu has stated that the country cannot continue to service debt with almost 90% of its revenue.

Tinubu worried that if the trend continues, the country will be destroyed.

“It’s a shame not to have electricity for the majority of homes in Nigeria. Poverty is not a shameful thing but it is not acceptable. We must banish it,” Tinubu said at the opening ceremony of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) annual conference in Abuja on Sunday.

“Can we continue to service external debt with over 90 per cent of our revenue? it is a path to destruction, we cannot continue that. We have to make hard decisions.”

He stated that in order to improve the status of the nation, his administration needed to make challenging adjustments.

According to the former Lagos governor, even though initial reforms may be painful, Nigeria must be willing to take the hard steps to set the country on the path of growth.

“We cannot have the country we desire without the reforms we have initiated. It is painful at the beginning, in the short and medium term, but we must do what we have to do to take this nation to its great destiny.

“It is not about you and it is not about me. It is about our generations yet unborn, for whom we must bequeath a great and prosperous country,” Tinubu’s media aide Ajuri Ngelale’s Sunday statement quoted him as saying.

The former Lagos State governor equally told the gathering that Nigerians need to change their attitude to make the country great.

“You are learned. I want to learn. Why are we so blessed and we are still lacking? We must have a change of attitude and a change of our mindset. We accuse our nation and its previous leaders,” he said.

“We complain a lot of the past. Is that the solution? No! Let us look forward and be determined! God has given us what we need. We must work hard with determination to make our country great and it begins with you who are seated here with me.”