Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s position on government borrowing, describing as “absolute nonsense” the president’s assertion that borrowing should not be regarded as a negative practice.
Obasanjo made his position known on Friday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, while speaking at the Ajibosin Platform, a public forum themed “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to solve grassroots problems and accelerate National Development.”
In April, Tinubu defended his administration’s decision to continue borrowing when necessary, arguing that loans were not inherently bad if the government worked hard to repay them.
The president made the remarks at the State House during a meeting with Plateau State leaders led by Governor Caleb Mutfwang and the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman, Nentawe Yilwatda.
“If we have to borrow, we borrow. Borrowing is not leprosy, we just have to work hard to be able to pay for it,” the president had said.
However, responding to the president’s position, Obasanjo argued that the consequences of excessive borrowing were more damaging than those associated with leprosy, particularly because public debt could affect several generations.
The former president said: “And for anybody to say debt is no leprosy, is absolute nonsense. Debt is worse than leprosy. Because leprosy destroys only one person. Debt destroys generations.”
Obasanjo also expressed concern over Nigeria’s economic performance, particularly the sharp depreciation of the naira against the United States dollar over the years.
To illustrate the extent of the currency’s decline, he recalled the exchange rate when he established his farm nearly five decades ago.
“When I started my farm, 47 years ago, naira to the dollar was one naira to $1.85. Forty-seven years ago. What has Nigeria done in 47 years that we now have 1,500 naira to the dollar? What have we done?” he asked.
He further questioned the knowledge and decision-making capacity of the country’s political leaders, demanding to know what they understood about governance and how such knowledge could translate into better living conditions for Nigerians.
“What do our leaders know? And what do they not know? And from what they know, what can they do for us?” he asked.
The former president also faulted Nigeria’s reliance on international financial institutions, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguing that their economic prescriptions might not adequately reflect the country’s peculiar needs and development challenges.
He maintained that the institutions were established before Nigeria gained independence and questioned their suitability in determining the country’s economic direction.
Recalling Nigeria’s agricultural policies, Obasanjo said the country was discouraged from providing certain forms of support to farmers despite similar interventions being available to agricultural producers in developed economies.
“World Bank and IMF were not designed for us. They were not built by us. They were built before we became independent. And that’s the people who would determine what we do,” he said.
Obasanjo also cautioned against the unquestioning adoption of economic policies recommended by foreign-trained experts, stressing the need for policymakers to consider Nigeria’s peculiar economic conditions when making decisions.
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