Nigeria Got Rid of All Foreign Debt During Obasanjo’s Second Term- El-Rufai
Former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai has categorically stated that the second term of former President Olusegun Obasanjo was most beneficial as the country got rid of all her foreign debt.
The former governor made this known on Friday during a session at the “Africa In the World Conference” in Stellenbosch, South Africa, as he
revealed that the excess they had in the “benchmark price of crude oil” was saved and that enabled Obasanjo’s led administration to pay off the foreign debt.
He noted that Obasanjo’s tenure yielded the most successful in terms of economic growth, job creation, and inflation rate in Nigeria.
El-Rufai, who served as a minister under Obasanjo, disclosed that Nigeria, the most populous African country, experienced economic prosperity during his second term extending from 2003 to 2007.
Obasanjo governed the country from 1999 to 2007, as the first democratically elected leader of the fourth republic.
While El-Rufai clamoured for the need for proper planning to aid the economic growth of Nigeria added that at the time, Nigeria returned to “proper integrated planning and we also got lucky”.
He said, “We have a planning commission in Nigeria but it has not been as effective.”
“If you look at Nigeria’s economic trajectory, the most successful four to five-year period of economic growth, job creation, and reduced inflation was the period of the second term of President Obasanjo in 2003 to 2007, when for the first time, the country went back into proper integrated planning and we also got lucky,” he said.
“Oil prices began to rise but we did not waste the windfall because we had planned. We had an excess crude account (ECA) that was based on a fiscal rule that any surpluses above a certain benchmark price of crude oil goes to that savings account.
“And with that, we were able to get rid of all our foreign debt.”
El-Rufai said Nigeria’s fiscal vigour was at its best in 2007, such that when the global financial crisis took place in 2008, “Nigeria did not feel anything”.
“Nothing was felt in Nigeria because Nigeria had a big savings account; we had huge reserves and we were able to absorb the shock without any internal problems unlike most countries,” he said.
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