PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari, has said Nigeria had no option than to borrow money to fix the country’s infrastructure challenges to woo investors.
The President made the clarification on Tuesday during a virtual meeting with members of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), a statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said.
“We have so many challenges with infrastructure.
“We just have to take loans to do roads, rail and power, so that investors will find us attractive and come here to put their money.
He regretted that the failure to provide the infrastructure for effective transportation deprived the country of its well-deserved status as the West African hub for Air cargo transportation and trans-shipment of goods.
On the economy, President Buhari noted the challenges posed by the “collapse of the oil market” and the decision of government to abide by the reduced oil production quota allocated by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
“We have to accept that decision; otherwise they (Middle-East producers) can flood the market and make the product unviable. So we have cooperated with what we get. With oil, we are in a difficult situation. The politics of oil is that the less you produce, the less you earn,” he said.
President Buhari explained that: “For us to bounce back to productivity, especially in agriculture, the unemployed with many of them uneducated had to be persuaded to go into agriculture.
‘‘If we hadn’t gone back to the lands we would have been in trouble by now. That is why we virtually stopped the importation of food thereby saving jobs and foreign exchange.”
