President Bola Tinubu has said Nigeria it is no longer desirable for Nigeria to continue to service its debt with 90% of her earned revenue in view of the negative implications for the nation’s sustainable growth.
The President, who made this remark on Sunday in Abuja while declaring open the annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), maintained that this administration must make difficult changes to improve the well-being of Nigerians.
According to him, Nigeria and the citizenry will prosper once the system is sanitized through the cooperation of all stakeholders, particularly the organized private sector’s (OPS’) leaders.
He said: “Can we continue to service external debts with 90% of our revenue? It is a path to destruction. It is not sustainable.
“We must make the very difficult changes that are necessary for our country to get up from slumber and be respected among the great nations of the world.
“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 stressed.
While restating his optimism for a prosperous Nigeria, Tinubu described the epileptic power supply in the country as “shameful” and promised that his administration would ensure improved power generation and distribution to meet national needs.
He lamented: “Yes, it is a shame not to have adequate electricity for the mass majority of homes in Nigeria and to power our industries. How can we address poverty without electricity? We can take many people out of poverty with an uninterrupted electricity supply. Poverty is not acceptable, and we must banish it.”
Earlier in his welcome address, the NBA President, Yakubu Maikyau, expressed the confidence of the association in the ability of the President to provide good governance to Nigeria given his pedigree and past track record in Lagos State, where he was the governor between 1999-2007.
He said: “President Tinubu got it right in Lagos, and it is our considered expectation that as President of Nigeria, you will not only replicate your achievements in Lagos but surpass them for our country.”
