Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticised President Bola Tinubu over his comment that borrowing is not leprosy, describing the statement as “absolute nonsense”.
Obasanjo spoke on Friday at the Ajibosin Platform, a public
forum in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital, themed “Leveraging artificial
intelligence to solve grassroots problems and accelerate national development”.
In April, Tinubu defended his administration’s borrowing
policy, saying the government would continue to take loans whenever necessary.
“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, Obasanjo said debt was more damaging than leprosy
because its consequences could affect generations.
“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,” the former president said.
Obasanjo’s remarks come days after Tinubu asked the national
assembly to approve a supplementary external borrowing plan of $20.52 billion
and €1.04 billion to finance projects and programmes across several sectors.
The president’s request was conveyed in a letter read by
Senate President Godswill Akpabio during plenary on Tuesday.
Tinubu said the proposed loans would fund projects in power,
transportation, healthcare, education, agriculture, water supply, security, job
creation and financial management reforms.
Days later, the president defended his administration’s
borrowing from international institutions and banks, arguing that Nigeria needs
sustained infrastructure investment to achieve its ambition of becoming a $1
trillion economy by 2030.
“The real question is not how much we borrow, but what we
build, what value we create and what future we leave behind,” Tinubu said in an
essay titled “From Reforms to Delivery: Our Infrastructure Investment and
Growth Strategy”.
However, Obasanjo questioned Nigeria’s economic performance
over the past 47 years, citing the depreciation of the naira against the
dollar.
The former president recalled 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 ability of Nigeria’s political
leaders to make decisions that would improve citizens’ living conditions.
“What do our leaders know? And what do they not know? And
from what they know, what can they do for us?” he asked.
Obasanjo criticised Nigeria’s reliance on foreign
institutions, particularly the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), arguing that their economic prescriptions might not reflect the
country’s peculiar circumstances.
He recalled that Nigeria had been discouraged from
subsidising agriculture despite developed countries providing support providing
support to their farmers.
“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.
The former president cautioned against blindly adopting
economic recommendations from foreign-trained experts without taking Nigeria’s
realities into account.
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