Your coverage impoverished Nigerians and made Nigeria the poverty capital of the world – Obasanjo tells Tinubu

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has accused the Tinubu administration of constructing each Nigerian poor by 300 per cent by the devaluation of the naira.

Obasanjo stated this on the Financial Times Africa Summit 2026 in London, United Kingdom, on Wednesday, October 21, including that Tinubu turned Nigeria into the poverty capital of the world by his financial insurance 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 wanted extra time to finish his reforms, saying he didn’t see the economic system bettering.

“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 said

According to the previous President, the Tinubu administration’s financial insurance policies have been “not in the best interest of Nigerians. Nobody can deny that.”

On the petrol subsidy, he stated gasoline affected “everybody and everything,” however argued that numerous what Nigeria known as subsidy was corruption and needs to be tackled first.