Sanusi Defends Tinubu, Blames Buhari for Nigeria’s Economic Woes

Nigeria’s former Emir of Kano State, Muhammadu Sanusi, has urged Nigerians not to hold President Bola Tinubu responsible for the country’s economic crisis.

Sanusi said it would be unjust to blame Tinubu for the situation in Nigeria, which he attributed to the poor management of the previous administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He claimed that Buhari’s administration disregarded his advice on how to rescue Nigeria from its economic troubles.
The former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor made these remarks during a virtual religious event on Sunday, February 11.

He said some Nigerians wanted him to speak against the president out of malice.

Sanusi said: “I have been warning about the impending crisis for years before the current economic hardship. Any economist who has studied monetary policy in the last eight years knows that Nigerians will face this difficult situation.

“The difficult situation Nigerians are facing is just the tip of the iceberg (if the right decision is not made) because Nigeria is not unique; similar situations happened in Germany, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Venezuela.

“The previous administration was stubborn about our plea for corrective measures (on the economic policy). I have said in front of the now sitting president in Kaduna state, any politician who tells you that things will be easy, don’t vote for him because he is lying. People simply ignored my advice as a political statement.

“If I am to be fair and honest to President Bola Tinubu, he is not the cause of the current hardship; for eight years, we were living a false lifestyle with huge debt from foreign and domestic sources. The Central Bank of Nigeria owes over N30 trillion, which resulted in debt service exceeding 100 percent.

“I won’t join other Nigerians in criticising Tinubu on the current economic hardship, and I am not saying he is a saint without faults, but in this current economic situation, President Tinubu is not the culprit. I will also speak if I see any bad economic policy of the Tinubu administration in the future.

“It’s unfair for anyone to blame the Tinubu administration for the current economic hardship because there is no other option than the removal of the fuel subsidy. After all, Nigeria cannot even afford to pay the subsidy. In the last eight years, the Central Bank kept printing more money, and the Naira kept losing value. There is too much naira in circulation because the CBN is printing the currency without control.

“The economy was badly managed, and they were not ready to take advice; in the last eight years, apart from sycophancy, nothing was done; those sycophants are those buying the dollar at the rate of N400 and selling it at the rate of N600 to N700.”