Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has accused the Tinubu administration of making every Nigerian poor by 300 per cent through the devaluation of the naira. BuyMaps
Obasanjo said this at the Financial Times Africa Summit 2026 in London, United Kingdom, on Wednesday, October 21, adding that Tinubu turned Nigeria into the poverty capital of the world through his economic policies.
“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.”
The former President rejected the argument that Tinubu needed more time to complete his reforms, saying he did not see the economy improving.
“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 stated
According to the former President, the Tinubu administration’s economic policies were “not in the best interest of Nigerians. Nobody can deny that.” BuyMaps
On the petrol subsidy, he said fuel affected “everybody and everything,” but argued that a lot of what Nigeria called subsidy was corruption and should be tackled first.