Obasanjo says debt is worse than leprosy, faults Tinubu's borrowing stance

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has pushed back hard against President Bola Tinubu's defence of government borrowing, saying loans do more damage than the disease the President used as a comparison.

Obasanjo spoke on Friday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at a public forum called the Ajibosin Platform, themed on using artificial intelligence to solve grassroots problems and speed up national development.

Tinubu had said in April, while meeting Plateau State leaders at the State House, that his administration would keep borrowing where necessary. "If we have to borrow, we borrow. Borrowing is not leprosy; we just have to work hard to be able to pay for it," the President said at the time, according to accounts of the meeting.

Obasanjo rejected that framing outright. He argued that a loan burden can be passed down through families and generations, while leprosy harms only the person who has it.

"Debt is worse than leprosy because leprosy destroys only one person. Debt destroys generations," he said.

The exchange touches a sore point for many Nigerians. A growing share of government revenue goes to servicing debt, and the President's comment came amid public worry about how much the country owes.

Naira, World Bank and IMF

Obasanjo also turned to the naira's long slide. He recalled that when he set up his farm 47 years ago, one naira bought about $1.85. He asked what Nigeria had done to reach a point where roughly ₦1,500 now buys one dollar.

He questioned whether the country's leaders understand its problems well enough to fix them, asking what they know and what they can do with that knowledge.

He was also critical of Nigeria's reliance on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, saying both bodies were set up before independence and without Nigerian input, yet their advice shapes national policy.

On artificial intelligence, Obasanjo said he is no technical expert but knows that any tool outside a country's control can be turned against it. He warned that Africa could repeat the pattern of slavery, colonialism and economic dependency if foreigners own and run the technology.

He also raised the roughly 24 million Nigerian children estimated to be out of school, calling them a looming national disaster, and urged that AI be used to widen access to education and help farmers choose crops and raise output.

Historian Dr Umar Ardo, the guest speaker, made a similar case. He said AI can organise knowledge and spot patterns but cannot replace human judgement or build institutions, and cannot give sovereignty to a society that does not control its own priorities and resources.

Ardo warned that data could become the next resource taken from Africa, asking who controls the knowledge when farmers' planting records or patients' medical files feed foreign-built systems. He called for local computing capacity, reliable power, African-owned datasets and coordination through the African Union's Data Policy Framework.

Mrs Onikepo Akande, who chaired the event, said AI is already reshaping how people think and work and urged Nigerians to use it wisely in health, farming and education.

What happens next

Nothing in Friday's forum changes policy on its own. The debate over borrowing and debt servicing is likely to continue as the government weighs spending against repayment, while calls for stronger data protection and home-grown AI capacity will be tested by how much is actually invested.