Prof Charles Soludo, Governor of Anambra State, has declared that the President Bola Tinubu administration inherited a dead economy from its predecessors.
Soludo made this claim on Thursday while commenting on Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme.
“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,” the former CBN governor stressed.
“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.”
Soludo, while explaining his role in putting curbs on monetary structures when he headed the apex bank between 2004 and 2009, accused the CBN of illegally printing money.
“We must realise where we are coming from,” he said.
“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.”
“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 maintained that the CBN failed to comply with the 2007 CBN Act, adding that the current monetary trajectory was avoidable in the first place.
“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.”