A former presidential aide Reno Omokri has accused former President Muhammadu Buhari of destroying Nigeria’s economy during his eight years in office.
At the end of Buhari’s tenure in May 2023, Nigeria’s debt had almost doubled from 18 per cent to 35 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
The Daura-born politician left inflation at 22.4 per cent.
The economic hardship has continued under the administration of President Bola Tinubu made worse by the removal of fuel subsidy and volatile exchange rate.
And Omokri believes the blames should go to Buhari, who according to him, ran a criminal enterprise instead of a government.
In a post he shared on X on Monday morning, Omokri said, “Buhari Destroyed The Economy. Tinubu Is Trying to Restore It. That’s just the honest truth. Even our oil sales are useless to us now, because Buhari sold them in advance and pocketed the money.
“This is because he borrowed more than all past governments combined, until our debt service to revenue ratio was so high that even China stopped lending us money.
“The exchange rate was being subsidised with $1.5 billion every month. What you saw then was not Naira’s actual value.
“Buhari lied to you about our foreign reserve position. Those funds had been used to guarantee loans and purchases. Long and short of it all is that Buhari would have jailed President Jonathan if Dr Jonathan had done half of what Buhari did. Buhari did not run a government. He ran a criminal enterprise that turned his former recharge card selling nephew into an overnight private jet flying multi-billionaire.
“We, in the opposition know this. But some of us are playing politics with it because they lost the 2023 election, and as far as they are concerned, if they did not win, Nigeria must collapse.”