Following recent comments made by the Nigerian Bishops’ Conference, calling on the President Buhari’s government to increase the effectiveness of its security forces, the methodist Bishop Sunday Ndukwo Onuoho has told the government to be wary of further borrowing.
The future of Nigerians, he said, was at risk if the government continues in the same vein.
Onuoha, the Co-Chair of the Interfaith Dialogue Forum for Peace and a winner of the Global Peace Award in 2013, noted that borrowing is all well and good but paying it back is a different question entirely.
“One thing about borrowing is that while doing it, it appears enjoyable, but where the problem sets in is when you don’t have any hope of paying back or when you haven’t invested wisely with the borrowed money. Hence problems may ensue at this point’, he said.
“Borrowing may not be a bad idea if you invest and deploy such loans judiciously, but in the Nigerian context, where there is a recession, a lot may not be achieved in terms of payback because those monies go into servicing of old debts without plans to invest.”
Stressing the investment in Children, Onuoha suggested that the best investment Buhari could make is in the young, who can most benefit the country in the long run, and, given the decline in oil prices, in agriculture, one of the principal employers in Nigeria before the oil boom.
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