Former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi has revealed that state governors during the last administration shared billions among themselves.
Obi said this on Wednesday morning while analysing the state of the economy on Channels TV.
He recalled how the former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala begged the State Governors at the time to save for the future in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), a programme that was meant to save fund for the nation, but most of them refused and shared the money.
Obi said, “Over the years, things have gone wrong, I remember Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala crying every day to governors to save these monies and invest in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), a programme that was meant to save fund for the nation to cater for a rainy day as presently experienced.
“All of us disagreed and said let’s share it. some governors even went to court to get the federal government to allow them to share the money among themselves. ”
Further speaking, Obi called on the federal government to stop borrowing as they keep plunging Nigeria into poverty.
“Borrowing for consumption will not grow the economy, it gets to a state where you can’t control it. The amount being used to service our debt today is high, we use almost 60% to service them and we are borrowing more, it’s escalating.
“World Bank and IMF have warned Nigeria against rising debt.
“You are borrowing money and the issues that it was supposed to affect is not coming down. Unemployment is worsening. Our unemployment rate moved from 14.8% to 18.8% this year, which means more people have lost their jobs.
“The economy is shrinking, the entire capital votes this year ‘is’ borrowed, and we have existing debts already. Poverty is increasing, out of school children have moved from 10 million to almost 12 million,” Obi added.
