Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he sees no indication that Nigeria’s economy is improving under President Bola Tinubu, faulting the administration’s naira devaluation and petrol subsidy removal as policies that have impoverished Nigerians.

Obasanjo spoke on Wednesday during a keynote interview at the Financial Times Africa Summit 2026 in London, United Kingdom, where he also challenged the argument that Tinubu deserves a second term to consolidate his economic reforms.

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According to reports by TheCable and Independent Newspaper Nigeria, the former president said the sharp depreciation of the naira had cut the purchasing power of Nigerians and contributed to the country’s position as the world’s poverty capital.

“Every Nigerian is made poor by 300 percent”

Obasanjo said the currency reforms, which saw the naira slide from about N500 to a dollar to roughly N1,500, had a direct and damaging effect on households.

“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 percent. The naira went from N500 to a dollar to N1,500 to a dollar,” he said.

“What that meant was that every Nigerian is made poor by 300 percent. That made Nigeria to become the poverty capital of the world, which means Nigeria has the largest number of poor people in the world. You cannot say to me that that is good for Nigeria. You cannot say to me that that is good for us in any sense.”

On the removal of petrol subsidy, the former president argued that corruption accounted for a substantial part of the cost of the subsidy regime, insisting that tackling graft would shrink what government would otherwise need to spend.

“Petrol and petroleum products affect everybody and everything. Now, what we call subsidy for petroleum products in Nigeria, a lot of it is corruption. And I believe that if we pay attention to corruption and deal with corruption, then what will remain of subsidy will be very little,” he said.

He Rejects Second-Term Argument

Asked whether Tinubu deserved another term to see his policies through, Obasanjo challenged the premise of the question.

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“What policies are you seeing through? You impoverish your people and you want to see impoverishment through? What are you seeing through?” he asked.

He compared Nigeria’s trajectory with Ghana’s, citing the movement of the cedi against the dollar under Ghana’s president.

“I understand that the present president of Ghana took over when cedi was 16 cedis to a dollar. Within six months, he took it to 10 cedis to the dollar. You can see the difference,” Obasanjo said, adding that cocoa farmers had appealed to the Ghanaian leader over falling prices for their produce, after which the currency settled at about 11.5 cedis to the dollar.

Pressed on whether he would support Tinubu’s re-election, Obasanjo said his criticism was directed at the administration’s economic programmes rather than the office itself.

“What he is doing wrong and what I am saying is the economic programmes that he has put in place, they are not in the best interest of Nigerians.

Pure and simple. Nobody can deny that,” he said. “If Nigeria after he took over has become the capital of poverty of the world, then that says something.”

“I Was Not Polite About Buhari”

The former president also rejected any suggestion that his criticism of Tinubu amounted to an endorsement of his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.

“I did not say Buhari did well either. If you read my book about Buhari, I wasn’t polite. I said Buhari does not understand economics and he does not understand foreign affairs. And I was proved right,” he said.

He urged that attention stay on the welfare of Nigerians rather than on the personalities of other presidential contenders.

“For now we are not talking about the other presidential candidates. Let us talk about economics and social interest in Nigeria and then the situation in Africa,” he said.