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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The Chancellor and Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Are Afe Babalola (SAN), has called on President Bola Tinubu to seek debt relief from international creditors.
Babalola spoke in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital at the weekend shortly after the 6th induction ceremony for 161 fresh doctors produced by the university into the medical profession by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).
He called for an investigation into how Nigeria found itself in the present situation of huge indebtedness.
The ABUAD Founder warned that something must be done urgently about the state of Nigeria’s indebtedness to prevent the country from being crippled by socio-economic crises.
“Nigeria is one of the greatest debtors of the world. To me, let us investigate how we came to owe several trillions of naira. What did we spend it on? I can assure you, most of the money is in the pockets of those who said they collected it,” he said.
The legal luminary asked the Tinubu administration to take a cue from what former President Olusegun Obasanjo did that brought the country’s indebtedness down.
“Unless we do that, this indebtedness will cripple this country and it may lead to anything.
“I have seen people, especially in the North who are agitating because of the fact that the naira is getting worse, food prices are high, no employment, those who are employed are not paid. What is responsible for all these is the fact that there is no money and the naira has no value. Something has to be done about the naira and productivity,” he added.