Anambra State Governor, Prof Charles Soludo, commented that the government led by President Bola Tinubu inherited a “dead economy” from its predecessors.
Soludo made this statement during an interview on Channels Television‘s Politics Today program.
He likened the previous state of Nigeria’s economy to a “dead horse” that was still standing, but people didn’t realize it was dead.
He added, “Because you can’t pour water on a rock and not expect the rock not to be wet. There are humungous challenges and I think it is important that Nigerians understand this, and it is not a tea party.”
He said:
“We must realise where we are coming from”.
“We sat here in this country and saw the monetary authorities printing money, illegally I must say, because I superintended the development of drafting of the 2007 Bank Act.”
“And to prevent us from where we are today, that is why we had an explicit clause there that prevents Central Bank from lending recklessly to the Federal Government.
“That you cannot grant to the Federal Government more than 5 per cent of the previous year’s actual revenue.”
He emphasized that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) did not adhere to the provisions of the 2007 CBN Act.
He also suggested that the current monetary situation could have been avoided if proper measures were taken.
“We all sat here and saw how the CBN brazenly, illegally violated that law year after year and kept on printing money,” the governor said.
“When you continue to credit the account of government, one trillion people shouted, two trillion,10 trillion, 15 trillion and 20 trillion and we kept going.”
Soludo served as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2004 to 2009. He played a key role in implementing restrictions on monetary systems and addressing issues related to unauthorized money printing by the CBN.