Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has strongly criticised President Bola Tinubu’s position on government borrowing, describing the assertion that borrowing is not leprosy as “absolute nonsense”.
Obasanjo warned that Nigeria’s growing debt burden could have devastating consequences for generations yet unborn, arguing that the effects of excessive borrowing are more far-reaching than those of leprosy.
He spoke on Friday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at the Ajibosin Platform, a public forum theme “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to solve grassroots problems and accelerate National Development.”
His remarks were a direct response to Tinubu’s earlier declaration that borrowing should not be regarded negatively, insisting that his administration would continue to borrow whenever necessary.
The President had said in April, during a meeting with Plateau State leaders at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, that borrowing was not a problem provided the country worked hard to repay its obligations.
“If we have to borrow, we borrow. Borrowing is not leprosy; we just have to work hard to be able to pay for it,” Tinubu had said.
While reacting to Tinubu’s comment, Obasanjo hit him hard, maintaining that leprosy can only destroy one person at a time while debt destroys generations.
He 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 questioned Nigeria’s economic management, recalling that when he started his farm 47 years ago, the naira exchanged at N1 to $1.85.
“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 also questioned the capacity of the country’s political leadership to make decisions that would improve the lives of 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 further criticised Nigeria’s dependence on foreign institutions, particularly the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), arguing that their policies were not necessarily designed to address the country’s peculiar circumstances.
He recalled how Nigeria was discouraged from subsidising agriculture despite what he described as the agricultural support available to farmers in developed countries.
“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 warned against blindly adopting economic prescriptions from foreign-trained experts without considering Nigeria’s realities.
