Cut your expensive travels, save Nigeria —Falana charges Buhari

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), on Sunday advised President Muhammadu Buhari to cut down expenses on his frequent travels in order to save money to drive Nigeria’s economy in 2020.

He argued hat the N10.33 trillion budget submitted to the National Assembly would not be sufficient to sail the country through the year except other means were explored to rake in funds for augmentation.

Falana made the comments while speaking with newsmen at Imota, near Abeokuta on Sunday.

He also advised the government to consider a serious action to recover Nigeria’s looted wealth to garner resources to fund the 2020 budget.

“From the budget breakdown, N2.5 trillion has been earmarked to service debt; about 70 per cent of the balance would go for paying salaries and recurrent expenditure while the remaining 30 per cent will hardly be enough for necessary developmental projects.

“The budget is not sufficient and so the government must look at other areas to generate more wealth for the country and embark on a serious drive to recover looted wealth.”

Falana faulted the recent increment in value-added tax by the government which he said would compound Nigerians’ hardship, advising the government to desist from adopting policy that could bring suffering to the masses.

Falana also suggested that government should consider other means to encourage cashless economy such as placing an embargo on the amount of money to be withdrawn from banks daily, rather than imposing charges.