African Leaders Will Laugh at Nigeria When They Visit – Presidency

African Leaders Will Laugh at Nigeria When They Visit – Presidency

The Presidency on Monday said that Nigeria will be made a laughing stock by leaders of the neighbouring countries if they should visit the country and discover that power supply was not sustainable.

The Presidency also explained that the interest to
be paid for the loans from China was the cheapest in every part of the world and that the loans were for the provision of infrastructure.

Speaking in an interview with the African Independent Television, AIT, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity Malam Garba Shehu noted that it was said that the country some years back spent $26 billion in power and yet there was darkness everywhere.

Justifying the borrowing from China by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, Shehu said, “We are borrowing for long delayed infrastructure. This country needed to have resolved a number of infrastructural problems much earlier than now.

“Some of our neighbors will laugh at Nigeria when they come and they find that electricity is not sustainable for a long period of time. This is a country we voted $16 billion to supply electricity. That money disappeared into the tin air, no power, nothing to show.

“So if we are borrowing now, government is prudent in management of the fund and borrowing specifically to projects for which there will be results. Look at the Abuja Light Train now, the Africa’s fast modern city rail in the whole continent. We are now borrowing money to put more coaches because there is huge appetite now especially for people in the outer space wishing to shuttle between the city centre and those outlaying areas.

“Look at the thing we are doing with the rail in Lagos and Ibadan, the rail will be completed early in the new year and coaches have to be bought otherwise it will just be sitting there. We are running train between Warri and Ajaokuta, Kaduna and Abuja is running and every day the coaches available now are overstretched.”