Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has shared insights into Nigeria’s debt relief efforts and foreign reserves growth during his administration.
Speaking exclusively with News Central TV on Thursday about his time in office, Obasanjo discussed the challenges he faced when he assumed power in 1999 and compared it to the current state of the economy in 2024.
“When I came in, in 1999, I made $3.7 billion in reserve. And as I’ve told you, we were spending $3.5 billion to service debt. That’s all we had,” he said, explaining the country’s financial constraints at the start of his administration.
Obasanjo recalled the heavy debt burden Nigeria carried when he became president, saying, “When I came in, we had debt overhang of close to $36 billion.”
However, he said after securing debt relief and making necessary payments, the national debt was reduced to around $3.5 billion by the time he left office in 2007.
The former president noted that Nigeria’s foreign reserves also saw remarkable growth under his leadership.
“The reserve that was $3.7 billion went to $45 billion,” he stated.
Obasanjo further explained the concept of the excess crude account, a savings mechanism used to store surplus revenue from oil sales above budgeted projections.
“We had around $25 billion in excess crude. When you add that to the reserves, we were talking about $70 billion,” he added.
He expressed frustration over how these financial gains have been depleted over the years.
“I left in 2007. Today, it’s 2024—17 years later. Between 2007 and 2024, all that amount of money had gone. All of it. Not only that, all the money they made during that period had gone.”
Obasanjo concluded by comparing the country’s current debt levels to what he inherited in 1999, saying, “Today, we owe more than we owed when I came to government in 1999.”