$6.9BN LOAN: Buhari’s govt using COVID-19 to make more money for itself —PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has claimed that the Federal Government of Nigeria led by President Mohammadu Buhari is using the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country to make more money for itself.

The party which was reacting to plans by the federal government to source as much as $6.9 billion from international lenders to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, said it is a ploy by the President Buhari-led government to deceive Nigerians.

Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Diran Odeyemi, in a statement on Tuesday, therefore tasked the government to come clean on what has happened to the billions of naira already donated by well-meaning Nigerians as palliatives to vulnerable citizens in need.

He said: “It is clear that this government is now using the Coronavirus pandemic as an avenue to make more money for itself. Why do we have to seek foreign loans when COVID-19 is a global phenomenon? Have they justified how the billions of naira raised so far have been spent?

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“Across the country, people are crying of the hunger and hardship occasioned by the lockdown. Food items are not provided and the money they claimed to be sharing to the poorest of the poor is enmeshed with controversy.

“With the way things are going, it may be difficult for this government to implement any development project again. It appears they are going to tell us that they spend the remaining three years fighting the virus,” Odeyemi said.

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