Obasanjo tackles Tinubu over borrowing, says debt worse than leprosy

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Obasanjo, who secured a $30bn Paris Club debt relief for Nigeria during his administration between 1999 and 2007, argued that while leprosy affects an individual, unsustainable debt burdens an entire nation and its future generations.

He spoke on Friday at the third 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, Ogun State.

Tinubu was recently quoted as saying that borrowing is not leprosy, arguing that his administration only needed to work hard to repay its loans.

However, Obasanjo dismissed the position as “absolute nonsense”, questioning the country’s rising debt profile 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 (IMF), arguing that the institutions’ recommendations were not necessarily designed to advance Nigeria’s development and prosperity.

Citing agricultural subsidies in Britain, Obasanjo recalled an encounter with former British Prime Minister Jimmy Callaghan, who, according to him, received government support for his sheep farming business.

He questioned why Nigeria should be discouraged from subsidising agriculture simply because the World Bank and IMF opposed such policies.

Obasanjo also faulted the country’s dependence on economic prescriptions from foreign institutions, arguing that decisions about Nigeria’s development should not be dictated by foreign-trained experts who lack an understanding of the country’s peculiar circumstances.

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.

“World Bank and IMF were not designed for us. They were built before we became independent, and that’s the people who will determine what we do.

“They are brilliant boys and girls; they went to Ivy League universities, Oxford, Cambridge, and all that. My children went to some of them, including Iyabo. She went to one of those schools; she went to Cornell.

“How can Iyabo be the one who will tell me how I will run my home? These brilliant boys will package everything very well academically. They tell us, and we take it, lock, stock, and barrel, and we use it.

“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 what we will do to manage our people, our country, and we swallow it, and we destroy ourselves.”

Obasanjo further expressed concern over the continued depreciation of the naira, questioning what the country had achieved economically over the past 47 years.

Recalling that the naira once exchanged at about $1.85, he lamented that the exchange rate had deteriorated to approximately N1,500 to the dollar.

He asked, “When I started my farm 47 years ago, one naira to the dollar was one naira to one dollar 85 cents. What has Nigeria done in 47 years that we now have N1,500 naira to the dollar? What have we done?

“What do our leaders know, and what do they not know? From what they know, what can they do for us? 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.”

The former President also cautioned Nigeria against adopting artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies without adequately understanding their implications.

He warned that technologies developed by powerful foreign countries could become tools of exploitation if African nations failed to establish control over their deployment and benefits.

Obasanjo maintained that Nigeria must determine how AI would address its development challenges rather than allow foreign interests to dictate its technological and economic priorities.

He also cited the misuse of AI-generated content as evidence of the potential dangers of the technology, stressing the need for appropriate safeguards.

“I don’t know too much technically about AI. But I know that anything that is not in your control can be abused against you,” he said.

Earlier, a historian and political commentator, Dr Umar Ardo, warned that Africa risked becoming a victim of another form of economic exploitation if it failed to control its data, technological infrastructure and intellectual property in the age of artificial intelligence.

Delivering his lecture at the symposium, Ardo acknowledged AI’s potential to transform economies and accelerate development but warned that adopting the technology without ownership, local expertise and adequate safeguards could reinforce existing economic inequalities.

He drew parallels between the continent’s historical experiences of slavery, colonialism and post-independence economic dependence, arguing that Africa had repeatedly supplied valuable resources while foreign interests controlled the technologies and profited from them.

According to him, Africa’s exploitation initially involved the transatlantic slave trade, which transported millions of Africans across the Atlantic, before shifting to the extraction of raw materials during colonial rule.

He explained that technologies such as railways, explosives and steam engines were deployed primarily to facilitate the extraction and transportation of African resources for foreign benefit.

Ardo said the pattern had continued after independence, with African countries still exporting raw materials while importing finished products and depending on foreign nations for technology, expertise and industrial capacity.

He cited Nigeria’s continued dependence on imported refined petroleum products despite being a major crude oil producer, as well as the reliance of cocoa-producing countries on foreign manufacturers for finished chocolate products.

He said, “Stand back and see the arc: human beings, raw materials, unprocessed commodities and skilled labour. In every age, Africa has been the quarry and not the miner, the farm and not the factory, the source and not the beneficiary. We were repeatedly assured that each new arrangement was different, fair and mutually beneficial.

“Now comes the age of artificial intelligence, which Africa is urged to ‘leverage’. I do not dispute its arrival or its potential. I ask whether we have considered the terms of participation. Data may become the fourth commodity in this long history of extraction.

“Data generated by our people, farms, hospitals, languages, businesses and public institutions is increasingly valuable, yet computing infrastructure, models, intellectual property and profits remain concentrated elsewhere.”

Ardo warned that unless African countries invested in local technological capacity and secured ownership of their data and intellectual property, artificial intelligence could deepen the continent’s economic dependence rather than accelerate its development.

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