Soludo: Tinubu inherited a dead economy, CBN violated the law by printing money

The governor of Anambra State, Prof Charles Soludo, has said that the current administration led by President Bola Tinubu inherited a dead economy

He made this remark on Thursday on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme, where he also criticised the policies of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Soludo, who was the CBN governor from 2004 to 2009, said that the economy was in a dire state when Tinubu took over.

He said, “This economy inherited a dead economy. From a macroeconomic point of view, this government inherited a dead horse that was still standing and people didn’t know it was dead.”

He added that the government faced humungous challenges and that Nigerians should not expect a quick fix.

“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.

He also accused the CBN of illegally printing money and lending recklessly to the Federal Government, in violation of the 2007 CBN Act that he drafted.

He said, “We must realise where we are coming from. We sat here in this country and saw the monetary authorities literally printing money, illegally I must say, because I superintended the development of drafting of the 2007 Bank Act.”

He explained that the Act had an explicit clause that limited the CBN’s lending to the Federal Government to 5 per cent of the previous year’s actual revenue.

“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 can not grant to the Federal Government more than 5 per cent of the previous year’s actual revenue,” he said.

He said that the CBN breached this law year after year and kept on printing money, which led to the current monetary crisis.

He said, “We all sat here and saw how the CBN brazenly, illegally violated that law year after year and kept on printing money. 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.”