Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s position that borrowing is not leprosy, declaring that the country’s mounting debt is worse than the disease because its consequences extend to generations yet unborn.
Obasanjo, who secured the landmark $30bn Paris Club debt relief for Nigeria during his administration between 1999 and 2007, said that while leprosy affects an individual, excessive borrowing endangered the future of entire generations.
He spoke on Friday at the 3rd Ajibosin Annual Symposium, themed “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Solve Grassroots Problems and Accelerate National Development”, held at the amphitheatre of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta.
Tinubu was recently quoted as saying that borrowing is not leprosy, arguing that his administration only needed to work hard to repay whatever it borrowed.
However, Obasanjo described the argument as absolute nonsense, questioning the country’s increasing debt burden and the capacity of its leaders to manage the economy.
The former President also criticised the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, arguing that they were not designed to promote Nigeria’s national development and prosperity.
He said, “I was sitting with the former Prime Minister of Britain, Jimmy Callaghan. Callaghan was a sheep farmer. He was being paid four euros per annum on every sheep he owned, and they say we must never subsidise agriculture, and if we subsidise agriculture, we won’t get money from the World Bank or from the IMF.
