Omoyele Sowore, presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), says Nigeria’s external reserves are being used to finance the rich.
Sowore said this in an interview with Arise TV on Friday.
He said if Nigerian leaders focus on strengthening “local reserves”, the nation would not “worry about the foreign reserves”.
The development is coming after Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria( CBN), said the country’s external reserves fell to $37 billion on November 15, 2022, the lowest level this year.
The ACC presidential candidate said the country is rich but has leadership problems.
“You have your foreign reserves depleted because it is not the reserve for the Nigerian people but serves as credit for the rich,” he said.
“You shouldn’t worry about the foreign reserve if you worry about the “local reserves” that can feed people, so Nigeria in 2022 will not be getting bags of grain from food and agricultural organisation around the world.
“The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) said there are N11 trillion unremitted revenues from government revenue-generating systems.
“Oil companies owe royalties in this country up to almost $6 billion. If you get that, you don’t need to go and borrow money from China. We have NLNG, the body we invested in through the NNPC, in gas, they have not given us or told us publicity about how much we get in terms of return on our investment.
“We have money, our problem is that we have money in the wrong hands. Because we don’t have leaders who care about you and me. Now, let Nigerian people get their own money.”
