- The governor underscored the urgent need to tweak expenditure to fit revenue and also for restructuring to facilitate progress
Godwin Obaseki, the governor of Edo State has expressed concern over the condition of the fiscal state of Nigeria, saying the nation’s financial condition is troubling.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Obaseki stated that Nigeria is bankrupt.
He said the All Progressives Congress (APC) led federal government has refused to display frugality in the face of the nation’s lean resources and unhealthy financial condition.
The governor underscored the urgent need to tweak expenditure to fit revenue and also for restructuring to facilitate progress.
“Nigeria is technically bankrupt. When you are bankrupt anywhere in the world like in the state.
“You restructure your affairs so that you can reorganize and be able to meet your obligations. But Nigeria is still behaving as if they have money like it used to.
“Nigeria has been in trouble for a while. We don’t have enough to cover our expenditures and we are not reducing our expenditures and we are not earning more. The federal government does not have the capacity anymore to manage the economy.”
In 2020, Obaseki raised alarm over the indiscriminate printing of money by the central bank of Nigeria, warning that such move would tank the economy and put a lot of strain on the Naira and cause its drastic depreciation which could see the nation’s legal tender exchange for over N1000 to a dollar.
The CBN and the president Muhammadu Buhari led federal government at the time debunked the governor’s assertion, saying the apex bank was not engaging in unlawful and arbitrary printing of money and that the Nigeria economy was in good shape.
However, in the dying days of the last administration, information emerged that the CBN under its erstwhile governor, Godwin Emefiele, acting on the orders of Buhari and some powerful persons in his government, printed N22 trillion in ways and means for the federal government with nothing to show for it.
This violated the ways and means act of the CBN which stated that the apex bank can only give loan worth of five percent of the previous fiscal year revenue to the government.