Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has decried the size of debt being owed by the country, years after he left office in 2007.
Obasanjo recalled he left the nation with about $70 billion,
including a $45 billion reserve and $25 billion in a designated “excess crude”
account.
The former President spoke on Thursday in an exclusive
interview with Kayode Akintemi of News Central Television.
Obasanjo, who lamented the poor quality of leadership in the
country, said his government met a debt overhang of close to $36 billion but
reduced it to about $3.5 to $3.6 billion before leaving office in 2007.
His words: “I came in 1999 and met $3.7 billion in the
reserve. And I have told you, we were spending $3.5 billion to service the
debts. That’s what we had.
“By the time we left eight years later, with debt relief,
when I came in, we had a debt overhang of close to $36 billion. By the time I
left, with the debt relief and clearing what we had to clear, the quantum of
debt that I left was about $3.5 to $3.6 billion from over or around $36
billion.
“At the same time, the reserve that was $3.7 billion when I
came in went to $45 billion. At the same time, we had what we called “Excess
crude”, which is what is in excess of what we budget and what we actually sell
the crude. Normally, we are conservative in budgeting, we call it “Excess
crude”. So, we had in it about $25 billion. When you add that to the reserve,
we are talking about $70 billion.
“Now, the point is that I left in 2007. Today between 2007
and 2024, all that amount of money has gone; all of it. Not only that, but all
the money they made all that period had gone. And today, we owe more than we
owe when we came to government in 1999.”
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