{"id":135487,"date":"2024-10-25T11:41:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T10:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo"},"modified":"2024-10-25T12:50:09","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T11:50:09","slug":"despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo","title":{"rendered":"Despite leaving $70bn in Nigeria\u2019s coffers, we owe more debt now \u2013 Obasanjo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has decried the size of debt being owned by the country, years after he left office in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo recalled he left the nation with about $70 billion, including a $45 billion reserve and $25 billion in a designated \u201cexcess crude\u201d account.<\/p>\n<p>The former President spoke on Thursday in an exclusive interview with Kayode Akintemi of News Central Television.<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo, who lamented the poor quality of leadership in the country, said his government met a debt overhang of close to $36 billion but reduced it to about $3.5 to $3.6 billion before leaving office in 2007.<\/p>\n<p>His words: \u201cI came in 1999 and met $3.7 billion in the reserve. And I have told you, we were spending $3.5 billion to service the debts. That\u2019s what we had.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy the time we left eight years later, with debt relief, when I came in, we had a debt overhang of close to $36 billion. By the time I left, with the debt relief and clearing what we had to clear, the quantum of debt that I left was about $3.5 to $3.6 billion from over or around $36 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the same time, the reserve that was $3.7 billion when I came in went to $45 billion. At the same time, we had what we called \u201cExcess crude\u201d, which is what is in excess of what we budget and what we actually sell the crude. Normally, we are conservative in budgeting, we call it \u201cExcess crude\u201d. So, we had in it about $25 billion. When you add that to the reserve, we are talking about $70 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, the point is that I left in 2007. Today between 2007 and 2024, all that amount of money has gone; all of it. Not only that, but all the money they made all that period had gone. And today, we owe more than we owe when we came to government in 1999.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About Nigeria Follow Africa-Press<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has decried the size of debt being owned by the country, years after he left office in 2007. Obasanjo recalled he left the nation with about $70 billion, including a $45 billion reserve and $25 billion in a designated \u201cexcess crude\u201d account. The former President spoke on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":135486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[254,479],"class_list":["post-135487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-nigeria","tag-obasanjo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Despite leaving $70bn in Nigeria\u2019s coffers, we owe more debt now \u2013 Obasanjo - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has decried the size of debt being owned by the country, years after he lef ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Despite leaving $70bn in Nigeria\u2019s coffers, we owe more debt now \u2013 Obasanjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has decried the size of debt being owned by the country, years after he lef ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-25T10:41:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-10-25T11:50:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2024\/10\/sm_1729844380.680174.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1050\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"718\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Despite leaving $70bn in Nigeria\u2019s coffers, we owe more debt now \u2013 Obasanjo\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-10-25T10:41:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-10-25T11:50:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo\"},\"wordCount\":326,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2024\/10\/sm_1729844380.680174.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\",\"Obasanjo\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/despite-leaving-70bn-in-nigerias-coffers-we-owe-more-debt-now-obasanjo\",\"name\":\"Despite leaving $70bn in Nigeria\u2019s coffers, we owe more debt now \u2013 Obasanjo - 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