Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticised President Bola Tinubu over his comment that borrowing is not leprosy, describing the position as “absolute nonsense”.
Obasanjo 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.”
In April, Tinubu said his administration would continue to borrow whenever necessary, insisting that it should not be viewed negatively.
Tinubu spoke at the State House during a meeting with Plateau leaders led by Caleb Mutfwang, the governor, and Nentawe Yilwatda, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
“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.
His remarks came amid rising public concern over Nigeria’s growing debt burden and the increasing share of national revenue committed to debt servicing.
Reacting to Tinubu’s comment, Obasanjo hit him hard, maintaining that leprosy can only destroy one person at a time while debt destroys 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 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.
