Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo says President Bola Tinubu’s administration inherited a dead economy.
Soludo stated this while commenting on the current exchange between the naira and the dollar during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.
The former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said part of the problem was that the apex bank was illegally printing money in complete violation of the 2007 law governing the financial institution.
“We have to realize where we come from,” Charles Soludo said. “We sat here in this country and saw the monetary authorities literally printing money. To prevent us from getting to where we are today, that was the reason for an explicit provision preventing the central bank from landing recklessly, granting… Federal government ways and means.
“We have explicitly put it in law that you cannot give the federal government more than 5% of the previous year’s actual revenues. You must retire by the end of the year in which it is granted. When the federal government fails to retire, this law prohibits the central bank from further developing ways to And the means. This was the Central Bank Act 2007.
“But all of us Nigerians have sat and watched the Central Bank of Nigeria illegally and brazenly violate this law year after year and continue to print money. That is when the money provided is not backed by anything; all you have to do is give the federal government N4 trillion, N10 trillion , N15 trillion, and we kept moving forward.
“I have said it before. This particular government inherited a dead economy from a microeconomic point of view, this government inherited a dead horse that was seen standing but people did not know it was dead. I think it is important for Nigerians to understand that.”
Speaking as negotiations progressed on the multi-billion dollar infrastructure financing facility from the Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia earlier in the month, Tinubu said his administration had inherited serious liabilities from his predecessors.
He said Nigeria had a serious deficit in port and power infrastructure, as well as agriculture-related facilities.