The former governor of Anambra state and Vice-Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Peter Obi, has decried the current high debt profile which the present federal government administration of President Mohammadu Buhari plunged the country into.

He said it was quite unfortunate that Nigeria was owing $30 billion some time ago and our creditors cancelled the debts for the nation to move forward and now this present regime has plunged us into a deeper debt profile to the tune of $80 billion, an indication that the nation is collapsing.

Obi who spoke inside Onitsha prisons during the 65th Birthday ceremony of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Onitsha Catholic Ecclesiastical Province, His Grace, Most Rev Valerian Maduka Okeke, said over 13.5 million Nigerian children are not in school, just as unemployment rate is nothing to write home about.

He contended that his choice as the vice president does not in any way call for celebration because the situation of Nigeria as of today requires an aggressive approach to ameliorate the situation, adding that if elected as vice president, he would personally work for the renovation of all the schools in the country.

He stated that even if the children of our political leaders have the privilege to go to school abroad, and the rest of children of the less privileged ones could not go to school due to the collapsed system in education and in every other sector, when the children of the leaders come back to Nigeria, the non educated majority would overwhelm them.

He commended Archbishop Okeke for building a skill acquisition center for the Onitsha prison inmates and expressed concern that half of the inmates were not supposed to be here in the prison custody, but for the sake of the collapsed system.

•Excerpted from Tribune report