In this opinion piece, Adamu Garba II shares his thoughts on Nigeria’s borrowing culture, questioning its impact and calling for a shift toward infrastructure-driven investments that can genuinely transform the nation’s future.
He opined:
Any borrowing that is not for the following projects, know that someone somewhere is eating your money
- Dredging of the River Niger and River Benue,
- Expanding the Baro and Onisha Ports,
- Extending and dredging the Calabar port,
- Recharging and revitalising Lake Chad,
- Completing the AKK Project,
- Developing the Mambila Hydropower Project,
- Expanded Ilaje and Badagry Ports,
- Completing the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road
- Superhighway connecting Lagos-Calabar-Maiduguri-Sokoto-Lagos
- High-speed train network connecting the East to the West and the North to the South of the 36+ FCT states of Nigeria.
These are the core economic nodes of Nigeria, connecting North-South and East-West for a free flow of goods and services, to tackle the devastating effects of inflation and boost economic productivity.
The real potential of Nigeria is not in the finite, stored natural resources like oil and gas, or minerals; rather, our potential is in our capacity to produce, trade, move and consume value from within (Nigeria First), then from without.
If our governments can concentrate on these key projects, Nigeria would be on the path to realising its full potential.
Unfortunately, we borrow for IDPs, School Feeding, Amnesty, Girl Child, Flood Disasters, Budget Shortfalls, Procurements of cars, virements, etc.
These in themselves are not all bad together, but they are purely consumable, linearly repeatable ventures, tying us to the endless process of Borrowing-For-Short-Term-Gains.
Borrowing is not a bad deal, but if we must borrow, then we must do so for the above core infrastructure and strategic projects – Adamu Garba II
