According to an interview shared by Arise News on September 08, 2025 from 10:22, former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, has expressed deep concern over the collapse of the naira, describing the situation as alarming and a sign of something fundamentally wrong in the country. He admitted that Nigeria has made mistakes in the past but questioned how those errors could have led to such a sharp fall in the nation’s currency.
Obasanjo made the remarks during a fireside chat at the Intra-African Trade Fair 2025 in Algiers, Algeria, where he addressed African leaders and business stakeholders. He recalled how, in 1979, shortly after leaving office, the naira was trading at ₦1 to $1.85, almost double the value of the US dollar. Today, the same naira exchanges at about ₦1,600 to the dollar. According to him, such a level of devaluation cannot be explained by poor policies alone.
The former president linked Nigeria’s economic woes to structural dependence on international systems not designed for Africa. He stressed that the nation and the continent at large must look inward to design financial and trade systems that work for their own realities, instead of relying on the IMF, World Bank, or Western currency regimes. He urged African leaders to prioritize solutions that strengthen local economies and reduce reliance on the dollar.
“I know we have done some bad things, but is it so bad that our money has been so devalued that it is not even worth the paper on which it is printed? Something must be wrong,” Obasanjo lamented, stressing that Africa’s development must be built “by us, for us, and with us.”
