South East group writes Nigeria’s creditors to stay action on $22.7bn loan

South East Response Team (SOREST) has written the international creditors of Nigeria from who the Federal Government was sourcing a total loan of $22.7 billion to put the transaction on hold.

It has also mobilised its lawyers to perfect a legal action against the federal government led by President Muhammadu Buhari, if it (government) fails to put on hold the transaction and review the project spread of the huge loan to accommodate the zones earlier excluded particularly the South East geopolitical zone.

Disclosing this on Wednesday, during a press conference in Enugu, the National Coordinator of SOREST, Aku Obidnma, said the group was also planning a massive peaceful protest across the five states of the zone to drum home their agitation for fair play and equitable distribution of the national resources.

He said the group was surprised that after its petition to President Buhari on the need to include the South East in the project spread for the loan and the promise of the Speaker of the House of Representative to put the passing of the bill for the loan on hold so as to accommodate those excluded, the National Assembly went ahead and passed it without the promised amendments.

Alleging that Buhari had in the early days of his first tenure through a global medium said that his government would “treat the south easterners who he perceived and still perceives as not to have massively voted for him during his election unfairly,” Obidnma said what was happening now confirms the promise.

On the exclusion of the South East from the current $22.7 billion loan government was sourcing from several international lending institutions he wondered how the project spread of such a huge loan could be carefully framed to elude the zone “whereas the it would be part of the repayment, which will, of course, be sourced from the central treasury.”  (Daily Sun)