Obasanjo Blasts Tinubu’s Reforms, Says Nigerians Have Been Made 300% Poorer
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms, arguing that the sharp depreciation of the naira has significantly worsened the financial condition of Nigerians.
Obasanjo made the remarks on Wednesday at the Financial Times Africa Summit 2026 in London, United Kingdom, where he questioned the impact of the administration’s economic policies since taking office in 2023.
The former president said the naira’s depreciation against the dollar had eroded Nigerians’ purchasing power, arguing that the currency’s fall from about N500 to the dollar to N1,500 represented a 300 per cent increase in the naira cost of a dollar.
According to him, the development had made Nigerians substantially poorer and contributed to the country’s position as one of the world’s major centres of poverty.
“We do not live in isolation as a country. We interact with the rest of the world. And overnight, you devalue the currency by 300 per cent. The naira went from N500 to a dollar to N1,500 to a dollar. What that meant was that every Nigerian is made poor by 300 per cent,” Obasanjo said.
He questioned the justification for the policy, insisting that its consequences for ordinary citizens could not be regarded as beneficial to the country.
“You cannot say to me that that is good for Nigeria. You cannot say to me that that is good for us in any sense,” he added.
Obasanjo also rejected calls for Nigerians to give Tinubu more time to deliver on his economic agenda, saying he had yet to see sufficient evidence of improvement in the economy.
“For the economy, I don’t see anything getting better. What policies are you seeing through? You impoverish your people, and you want to see impoverishment through?” he asked.
He maintained that the policies introduced by the Tinubu administration were not serving the best interests of Nigerians.
On the removal of the petrol subsidy, Obasanjo acknowledged the widespread impact of fuel prices on the economy but argued that corruption had accounted for a significant portion of what the country previously described as subsidy payments.
He urged the government to prioritise tackling corruption, reducing wasteful spending and unnecessary luxury, while strengthening domestic production.
Before the Central Bank of Nigeria unified the foreign exchange windows on June 14, 2023, the official exchange rate stood at approximately N460.80 to the dollar.
The naira subsequently weakened, with the official rate reaching about N1,333.54 to the dollar on October 19, according to the figures cited in the report. It had also fallen to approximately N1,607.05 in early May 2025.
Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that headline inflation stood at 14.63 per cent in September, compared with 20.98 per cent a year earlier. Food inflation was reported at 19.59 per cent, while the economy recorded real gross domestic product growth of 4.43 per cent in the second quarter.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, said on August 19 that the removal of the petrol subsidy had saved the government N15.8 trillion between June 2023 and December 2025.
Efforts to obtain a response from the Presidency were unsuccessful, as the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, could not be reached.
