Nigeria’s former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Friday warned that excessive borrowing could mortgage the future of generations of Nigerians.
He also criticised President Bola Tinubu’s comment that “borrowing is no leprosy”, describing the statement as “absolute nonsense”.
The former president spoke at the Ajibosin Platform, a public forum themed “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Solve Grassroots Problems and Accelerate National Development”, in Abeokuta.
Saturday Tribune recalls that Tinubu, in April, publicly stated that his administration would continue to borrow funds whenever necessary.
The President made the remark at the State House during a meeting with Plateau State leaders led by Governor Caleb Mutfwang and the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nentawe Yilwatda.
Tinubu said, “If we have to borrow, we borrow. Borrowing is not leprosy, we just have to work hard to be able to pay for it.”
Obasanjo said leprosy could destroy only one person at a time, while debt 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,” he added.
He expressed concern about the management of the nation’s economy, revealing that he started his farm 47 years ago when the exchange rate was 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 the 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.
He said: “They are brilliant boys and girls, so they went to Ivy League universities, Oxford, Cambridge, and all that.
“These brilliant boys, then they put it, it’s good academically. And they tell us, and we take it, lock, stock and barrel, and we use it.”
He questioned why a country with a population of about 250 million people would depend on the recommendations of young experts who, according to him, might have little experience managing households or understanding the country’s complexities.
“For a country of 250 million people, it is boys and girls who are not even married, let alone manage a home, who will tell us how, what will we do to manage our country? And we swallow it. And we destroy ourselves,” he said.
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