Seek help from international creditors, Babalola tells Tinubu

The Chancellor and Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Are Afe Babalola, SAN, has again called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to seek debt relief from international creditors.

Babalola called for an investigation into how Nigeria found itself in the present situation of huge indebtedness.

He, therefore, cautioned that something must be done urgently about the state of indebtedness to prevent the country from being crippled and attended by socio-economic crises.

The ABUAD founder spoke in Ado Ekiti at the weekend shortly after the 6th induction ceremony of 161 fresh doctors produced by the university into the medical profession by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.

Babalola said, “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.”

The legal luminary asked the federal government to take a cue from what former president Olusegun Obasanjo did when Nigeria found itself in a serious problem that brought down the country’s indebtedness at that time, adding that, “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.”