Obasanjo And The Arrogance of Expired Knowledge: Debt Is Not Your Farm, Baba, Go And Rest
By Fattykolly Ibn Alimi
There are elders who speak wisdom, and there are elders who speak because they cannot stand silence. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, at Abeokuta on Friday at the Ajibosin Platform, proved he belongs to the second category.
"Debt is worse than leprosy," he thundered. "Debt is worse than leprosy because leprosy destroys one person, debt destroys generations."
What absolute, outdated, and intellectually lazy nonsense.
This is the same old, crude, expired mentality that almost made Atiku Abubakar strip Obasanjo himself of his second term. Let us remember history correctly.
Obasanjo thought he was smart. He thought he was the master strategist from Ota. So he left Atiku Abubakar in charge of the economy and all other important affairs of the state. He made Atiku Chairman of the National Economic Council, Chairman of Privatization, de facto Prime Minister of Nigeria. He was busy traveling the world while Atiku was building a political and economic empire inside Aso Rock.
Until Atiku grew massive wings. Wings so large they almost pushed Obasanjo out of the Presidency. The same Atiku he fed fat became the monster that fought him in 2003, fought him over second term, fought him over third term, and almost removed him. That is Obasanjo's wisdom. That is his economic brilliance. A man who could not manage his own Vice President wants to teach Nigeria how to manage its debt?
And now Baba has come again, with that same archaic 1970s farm economics, to lecture a 21st century Nigeria.
Baba, where did your debt-free preaching take Nigeria? You left office in 2007 with naira at N120 to a dollar. Today you cry about N1,500 to a dollar, but you conveniently forget that you and your Atiku that you empowered created the monster. When you started your farm 47 years ago at N1 to $1.85, you were not a genius. You met an oil-rich nation that you and your fellow soldiers mismanaged into begging for IMF loans.
Obasanjo's argument is not economics, it is sentiment. It is the same old crude mentality that believes keeping money under the pillow is wealth.
Baba, debt is not leprosy. Ignorance is leprosy. And the ignorance of empowering a Vice President to the point of almost losing your own seat is the worst form of ignorance.
Tell us, where does America stand? The United States of America, the most powerful economy on earth, is the most indebted nation in history, with over $35 trillion in debt. Is America destroyed? No. America built highways, built Silicon Valley, built NASA, built the strongest military on earth, with debt. Japan owes over 250% of its GDP. Is Japan destroyed? The United Kingdom, China, France — all great nations borrow. What destroys a nation is not debt, but debt without capacity, debt without purpose.
And that is where President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is different. This is what Obasanjo deliberately refused to understand.
"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 said in April at the State House. That is not recklessness. That is the truth of modern economic management.
For decades, Nigeria borrowed to pay fuel subsidy — to feed billionaires. We borrowed to service the pockets of a few oil cabals who imported fuel and pocketed our commonwealth. Every naira we earned went into subsidy fraud. Debt under that regime was indeed poison, because it had no capacity to repay. It was consumption debt. It was wasted debt.
Tinubu has changed the whole story. By removing fuel subsidy, he freed over N7 trillion annually. For the first time in 20 years, Nigeria's debt service-to-revenue ratio is dropping. The FAAC allocations to states have tripled. The capacity to pay is now real. Borrowing today is no longer to pay subsidy, it is to build roads, to build the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, to build student loans, to build CNG infrastructure, to build a future.
How can Obasanjo not see this? Because he still thinks we are in the subsidy era. He still thinks major funds meant to develop Nigeria are still being wasted to service a few billionaires. He does not know that the game has changed.
A man who thought he was smart enough to leave his Vice President in charge of everything until that Vice President almost sacked him, has no moral right to call Tinubu's borrowing nonsense. Tinubu is in charge of his government. He is in charge of his economy. He is not outsourcing power like you did.
So Baba, with all due respect, gently go and rest. You have no knowledge left to comprehend the complexity of the world's economy of this generation. You failed to manage Atiku. You cannot manage Nigeria's debt conversation.
Nigeria has moved beyond your crude farm analogy.
Fattykolly Ibn Alimi can be reached at fattykolly@yahoo.com
0 Comments