Maduako Igbokwe l Saturday, October 30, 2021
ONITSHA, Anambra, Nigeria – Governorship candidate of All Progressive Congress APC for the Anambra November 6 poll, Senator Andy Uba has told the candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance APGA Professor Charles Soludo to stop feigning ignorance about the rising debt profile of the state.
Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA in next week’s Anambra governorship election, had while speaking on Channels TV programme, Politics Today on Thursday a shocked Anambra people when said he could not put a figure to the state’s debt profile.
The Professor of Economics had been pointedly asked if he knew what the state’s debt overhang was, and how he intended to deal with it.
According to Uba instead of Soludo offering a definitive answer, he embarked on a rigmarole, stating that he would find out when he becomes governor.
The presenter of the programme , Seun Okinbaloye pressed further, stating that statistics from the country’s Debt Management Office, DMO, indicated that Anambra owed N60 billion in domestic debt, and $116 million in external loans.
However, he said the real shock emerged when the eminent Professor, renowned for his oratorical skills said: ‘We are going to verify that. Borrowed from who, who are the creditors?’
“We see Soludo’s demurred stance on a very sensitive issue that affects the lives of the people as cheap politics and an attempt to cover up the sins of his pay masters to the detriment of the State.
“We are however happy that APGA’s antics are already known to the people who are waiting to finally send them packing on November 6. Ironically, data released by the DMO on December 31, 2020 indicated that Anambra’s domestic debt stood at N59,013 billion as at September 30, 2020, while the state’s external debt profile was $115,886 million as at June, 2020.
“In deed, it is shocking that a Professor Soludo who should have such information at the tip of his fingers, would elect to play politics with such information crucial to the lifeblood of the state, or was simply being mischievous.
“Whichever is the case, Professor Soludo owes Anambra people the patriotic duty of researching into what really is the debt liability of our dear state, Anambra.
“In fact, for a man who was two years ago, in November 2019, given the task of fashioning out the grandiose 50-year Anambra 2070 Vision Agenda not to have important data such as the profit and loss account of the state, speaks eloquently about his capacity for accomplishing small, practical assignments.
“Perhaps, it is this obvious flaw that caused former Minister of Finance and current Director General of the World Trade Organization, WTO to author a damning confidential report on Soludo in January, 2015.”
