SOME of the loans Nigeria is currently re-paying were obtained immediately after it attained independence in October, 1960, according to Dr Abraham Nwankwo, Director-General of the Debts Management Office (DMO).

Nwanwko, speaking at a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) forum in Abuja, on Sunday, said “indeed, if you go to our loan books now, which are available for public scrutiny, you will find out that some of the loans we have in our books now were borrowed in 1965, 1968 and 1970.”

Nwankwo said the then central and regional governments took the loans to execute major projects, adding that it was on record that the loans were used to build major roads and houses of assemblies in Kaduna, Enugu, and Ibadan.

He said the loans were also used to establish many federal universities and other notable tertiary institutions in the country, adding that most of the successful agricultural projects of the past were funded with borrowed funds.

The DMO boss said he was in custody of the record of the  national development plans of the 60s and 70s in which the central and regional governments issued development loan stocks.

“Borrowing is not new to Nigeria and, indeed, as I said earlier, borrowing is an integral part of a modern economy,” he said.

Nwankwo described the DMO as a permanent feature of every emerging economy, adding that governments all over the world, no matter how developed, needed to borrow to fund major projects.

“This explains why countries like the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), France and Germany, which are so well advanced, still borrow domestically and externally,” he said.

He said more than 90 per cent of private companies worldwide could not function unless they borrowed, adding that it made sense for them to borrow to expand and enlarge their turnover.