I used to think that it is only Nigeria politicians who have patented the art of double speak, but Nigeria’s unofficial Prime Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, new position on our debt profile has shown that technocrats are not insulated from the art.

I recalled how the global media celebrated Ngozi when she led the economic team put together by OBJ to negotiate our debt pardon with our creditors under the Paris Club. She affirmed that whatever money Nigeria saves by not servicing its debt would be channeled into development projects that would affect the lives of Nigerians, adding that after the debt reduction, Nigeria would use part of its resources to pay off the balance.

On the possibility of Nigeria returning to the status quo through the accumulation of more loans in the future, Okonjo-Iweala said that there was now a consensus among government players that the ”nation won’t get into the situation again”.

She resigned as Nigeria’s Foreign Minister on August 3, 2006 following her sudden removal as head of Nigeria’s economic team by OBJ. She left OBJ’s administration at the end of August 2006 in 2011, and was reappointed as Minister of Finance with the expanded portfolio of the Coordinating Minister for the Economy by GEJ.

However, contrary to what Okonjo-Iweala assured, under her watch, Nigeria has accumulated more debt. DG, Debt Management Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo has said Nigeria’s current public debt portfolio made up of both domestic and international borrowings stood at about N10.5 trillion compared to about N10 trillion in December 2013.

Interestingly, Okonjo-Iweala is not perturbed.

“Nigeria does not have a debt problem overall, but Nigeria has to watch its domestic debt. There is something called debt to GDP ratio; this is what is used in the whole world to measure the state of indebtedness of a country and in Nigeria, in whichever way you look at it, our debt to GDP ratio is 21 per cent. This is one of the lowest for a country of our profile worldwide,’’ she said.

According to her, UK and US have debt to GDP ratios of 89 per cent and 90 per cent, respectively, while Japan has about 200 per cent.

Isn’t this double face? What do you think?

source| http://www.sisicalabar.com/okonjo-iwealas-double-speak-and-nigerias-debt-profile/