Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has accused President Bola Tinubu of making Nigeria the world’s poverty headquarters through his administration’s economic policies, including the devaluation of the naira.
Mr Obasanjo, who stated this while speaking at the Financial Times Africa summit 2026 in London, United Kingdom, on Wednesday, said the sharp decline in the naira’s value has left Nigerians impoverished.
“We do not live in isolation as a country. We interact with the rest of the world. And overnight, you devalued 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. That made Nigeria become the poverty capital of the world, which means Nigeria has the largest number of poor people in the world. 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,” the former president said.
Presidential spokespersons Bayo Onanuga and Daniel Bwala did not immediately respond to Peoples Gazette’s separate requests seeking comments on Mr Obasanjo’s statement.
The former president’s statement came amid widespread hardship in the country following Mr Tinubu’s economic policies, including the removal of the petrol subsidy and naira devaluation.
In 2023, the Tinubu-led government initiated foreign exchange reforms, allowing the naira to trade more freely and collapsing the multiple exchange-rate system.
The government noted that the reforms, which coincided with naira depreciation, were necessary to improve market efficiency, attract foreign investment and address distortions in the currency market.
The reforms, however, resulted in rising inflation and higher costs for imported goods, putting additional pressure on households and businesses across the country.
Despite a 2025 World Bank Report predicting a grim future for Nigeria and warning that more people were at risk of being plunged into poverty, the Tinubu-led government insisted its economic policies were yielding positive results.