Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has called on Nigerians to embark on a ‘Text Protest’ against the members of the National Assembly to protest increase in borrowings.
PRP, first political party to attempt to mobilise ordinary people in all parts of Nigeria, also asked the people reject the current request by the executive for additional borrowings.
The National Chairman of the party, Mr. Falalu Bello, made the call yesterday while addressing a news conference in Abuja.
He reminded the executive and the legislative arms of government that continuous borrowing in the face of reduction in revenue earnings was wrong and akin to mortgaging the country’s future particularly to foreign lenders, thus gradually taking Nigeria into servitude.
He said the National Assembly as representatives of the people had the onus of stopping these further borrowings and forcing the executive arm to show what the immediate past borrowings have been put into and how the government intends to service these debts.
Bello noted that the federal government “is currently faced with a lot of problems from both economic and social perspectives – a persistent double-digit inflation rate which continuously lowers the purchasing power of the population and 45 per cent youth unemployment.
“We will through the Nigeria press ask Nigerians to start a text protest to members of the House Representatives and the Senate as well as the members representing them to protest increase of borrowings and request for rejecting current request of the Executive of additional borrowings as none with inability to service its/her debt should additionally borrow.”
Bello pointed out that it was wrong for any nation to service debts with 90 per cent of its revenue and still borrow more loans, saying it meant the country would go bankrupt.
PRP’s national chairman warned that there “is going to be another colonialism in disguised with increased borrowings unless it is stopped.”
Bello said rather than engaging in reckless borrowing, there was a need to make the legislature unicameral as opposed to existing bicameral by downing away with the Senate and making the Assembly part time as opposed to the current full time arrangement.
He said the major focus of the PRP if it gains power is tackle the institutional corruption that the current government has failed to approach it, while the second approach would be to bring perpetrators of corruption to justice, without being selective.
