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APC govt has mortgaged Nigeria’s future –Yaroe

The senator representing Adamawa South Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Binos Daura Yaroe, in this interview with CLEMENT EKONG, speaks on borrowings by the Federal Government and the war against corruption

 

What is your take on borrowings by the Federal Government and what does such portend for Nigeria?

 

As a senator from the minority party in the Senate, I sympathize with our future generation because the borrowing spree by the Federal Government of Nigeria is a deliberate action tantamount to mortgaging their future.

I want to tell you that all efforts by senators of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) extraction and other stakeholders to get the leadership of the Senate to rescind the retrogressive action have fallen on deaf ears.

 

The worrisome aspect of the borrowing is that the monies are used in maintaining the lifestyles of people in power instead of carrying out capital projects that will add value to the lives of all Nigerians. So, year in, year out, we have been engaging in large scale borrowings to fund the budget deficit.

 

This is of great concern because whatever the justification of the borrowings, what it means is that the present leadership in the country is mortgaging the future of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

 

It would be difficult for the country to pay this mounting debt in the future and that was why I said the present leadership is mortgaging the future of our grandchildren.

 

What this means is that we are putting the future of our children yet unborn into great difficulty because they must pay the debt and that is something that should be of concern to every Nigerian.

 

President Muhammadu Buhari recently presented the 2022 budget; what do you make of it?

 

Year in, year out, this country has been living beyond its means presenting deficit budgets. In other words, the expenditure we proposed to incur for many years is now more than the revenue we are expecting to generate.

 

We are using the resources of the future to live for today and to maintain our lifestyles. The worrisome aspect is that much of the budget is always dedicated to recurrent expenditure, which is generally to maintain services not to create any further development.

 

An ugly part of the narrative is the failure of the Federal Government to logically prosecute its touted anti-graft war.

 

I can assure that if the government is serious, it could have recouped trillions of naira stolen from the treasury to fund its budget deficit of over N6 trillion in the 2022 budget instead of budgeting to enriching themselves.

 

You mentioned the anti-graft war and the recouping of stolen fund; how would you assess the present administration’s fight against corruption?

 

It is not a hidden fact that the antigraft war has yielded no positive results. This is so because upon all the arrests, trials and recoveries, government has not recouped stolen monies to fund its budget deficit of over N6 trillion in the 2022 budget. In my contribution at the Senate, I alluded to this and I said if we truly pursue the corruption cases that we have, we should be able to recover enough money to bridge the budget deficit.

 

There is a case of former managing Director of a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), who looted over $3 billion. It was also revealed recently that through forensic audit in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) that a large scale looting has taken place.

 

What has the anti-graft agency done to bring those involved to book or to disclose the amount involved to the appropriate authorities for necessary actions to serve as a deterrent to others. Rather, such individual would be transferred to another hidden office as cover.

 

Believe me; if you aggregate all the major cases of corruption, you will have more than N6 trillion looting that has taken place in few years. I drew the attention of the Senate leadership to this so as to reduce the issue of borrowing.

 

What is the rationale of demanding for a University of Education in Numan, Adamawa State?

 

The rationale behind the sponsorship of the bill for a Federal University of Education, Numan, is as a result of the absence of a tertiary institution worth its name in the whole of Adamawa South Yaroe Senatorial Zone despite being the cradle of education right from time. I thank the leadership of the Senate and my constituents for the massive goodwill and turnout during the public hearing on the bill; history will be kind to them in that respect.

 

The bill for the university is one that I and every citizen of the southern zone of the state believe is long overdue.

A university in Numan is something that should have happened long ago because if you look at the history of Numan, especially in the area of education, you will find out that there is no reason why there is no tertiary institution of note in that place.

In the entire Adamawa South Senatorial Zone, we have only two tertiary institutions.

 

Both of them I can regard as semi tertiary because Numan campus of Adamawa State polytechnic is almost just a name and some secondary schools are even better than the College of Agriculture, Ganye.

 

So, we need serious institutions of higher learning in Adamawa South It is for that reason that I thought that a University of Education should be cited in Numan.

 

What is your comment on allocated for security in the 2022 budget proposal?

I want to believe that the issue of security vote as reflected in the budget is not negotiable. Security should and must be number one priority to be given attention by any government.

 

Security in all ramifications is number one because if you’re not secured, you cannot go to schools, markets and other places of importance.

 

Today, there are some states, local governments and even communities that are no go areas in this country. That is to say that there are some roads you cannot travel on because of insecurity.

 

So, I am not surprised that nation’s security is taking the lion share of the 2022 budget. That is how it should be because we have to be secured before we can go to schools or to carry out our daily activities freely and successful.

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