Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Nigerian president, has said his administration left Nigeria’s economy better than it is now.
News About Nigeria reports that Obasanjo ruled Nigeria as a military head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as a democratically elected president from 1999 to 2007.
Obasanjo boasted of his administration reshaping Nigeria’s economy and leaving it in better shape when he left office in 2007.
Speaking in Abeokuta at the Safe Online Youth Fellowship Bootcamp, the former president recalled landmark achievements by his administration while in office.
Obasanjo boasted of setting Nigeria free from the bondage of debt and setting the pace for an uninterrupted democracy for 25 years.
According to Obasanjo, “When I came in as elected president, I wanted to get debt relief because we were spending $3.5 billion every year servicing debt and the quantum of the debt was not going down. Today, I can say that I made Nigeria better than I found it from an economic perspective.
“I found $3.7 billion in the reserves and we were spending $3.5 billion to service our debt. By the time I left, we had a debt of about $36 billion with the debt relief, and I left with a debt of $3.6 billion. Also, I left a reserve of over $50 billion. I also achieved excess crude for the country worth over $25 billion.”
Obasanjo, who simply defined success as leaving a place better than one found it, said that he achieved that in his administration with excellent track records.
Recall that Obasanjo paid a visit to Oluremi Tinubu, the first lady, on the occasion of the Eid-el-Kabir celebration, in Lagos on Monday.
