The All Progressive Congress (APC) Party has knocked the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in 2023 general elections, Peter Obi over his statement on the country’s economic situation.
In a statement signed by the Party Spokesman, Felix Morka on Tuesday stated that the former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi continued, unabashedly, to showcase obsessive devotion to self promotion against the best interest of Nigeria.
The Party said Obi’s latest statement on the country’s economic situation is an admixture of half truths, blatant distortions and misinformation calculated to mobilize outrage against the APC Government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The Statement tittled: PETER OBI, A LOQUACIOUS AND DISRUPTIVE BACKSEAT DRIVER, stated further that the ex-Governor, Obi is a loquacious and disruptive backseat driver who has assigned himself an ignoble role of an embittered loser and spoiler.
According to the Party, “Obi’s warped conclusion that Nigeria’s economic crisis was caused by nine years of APC-led Govt is a highly revisionist, dishonest, distorted and deliberately misleading assessment of the country’s economic trajectory in the last decade.
Adding that, “Obi opined, rather mischievously, that no efforts were being made by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to tackle poverty and unemployment in the country.
The Party said the facts tell a far more complex and different story, saying that the country’s economic decline began under the watch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with GDP growth plummeting from 7.98% in 2010 to 2.79% in 2015.
“And since 2015, the global oil price crash, geopolitical tensions, climate change, global COVID pandemic and rising population have all taken a toll on Nigeria’s economy that is almost entirely dependent on drastically reduced oil export earnings.
“The growth recorded during the PDP years was due entirely to high price of crude oil and increased government spending that it supported. It is noteworthy that between 2007-2014, Nigeria earned $531.2 billion under the PDP, compared to $287.8 billion under APC between 2015-2022.
“This drastically reduced export earnings under the APC administration was even further stretched thin by the country’s population surge from 184 million in 2015 to 229 million in 2024. 
“Despite the huge revenues available to it, successive PDP administrations neglected to address underlying structural challenges and distortions in the economy leaving the country vulnerable to economic shocks and volatility.
“Had the PDP undertaken a sustained programme of economic reform as President Tinubu is currently engaged, Nigeria’s economic situation would be far better than it is today”, the Party said.
It emphasized that Obi in his selfish political desperation, will never acknowledge the complexity of the causation of the economic challenges but would rather attempt to scapegoat the APC administration for all of the country’s economic ills.
The Party said Obi chose to turn a blind eye to bold and thoughtful policy interventions of President Tinubu’s administration who focused and determined efforts to tackle country’s challenges through diversification, massive infrastructure development.
Also with social welfare, agricultural revolution and sustained improvements in national security which are certain to accelerate Nigeria’s resurgence, create jobs and lift millions of our people out of poverty.
“Quite contrary to Obi’s jaundiced and gloomy analysis, in the last one year alone, the country has attracted over $20 billion into the economy, aside recording an all-time high N6.52 trillion trade surplus in the first quarter of 2024 marking a positive shift from a long history of trade deficits.
Despite clearing the backlog of the foreign exchange debts owed foreign airlines and other economic actors by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the nation’s foreign reserves has continued to expand, hitting upwards of $34 billion, the highest in recent times.
“Capital inflow into the country increased by 66.27 percent this year alone. Notable financial experts and the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report that for the first time in our economic history, the All Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) crossed the 100,000 benchmark this year.
Adding that, “this benchmark makes the Nigerian Stock Exchange currently about the most profitable capital market in the world with a return on investment (RoI) as high as 22.90 percent.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that the nation’s economy will have a 3.1 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2024, one of the highest projections for any African country.
Initiatives such as the Credit Corps, Students Loan, the newly approved minimum wage, the construction of 700-kilometre Lagos- Calabar coastal highway, and many more are tailor-made by the President Tinubu’s to combat poverty and expand economic opportunities for Nigerians”.
The APC pointed out that economic challenges and hardship are a stark reality of most countries of the world today, both developed and developing. It is an existential condition that must be tackled, transformed. “This is an arduous task that requires collective patriotic collaboration.
The Party said the former Governor must know that inflaming passion and mobilizing outrage through false and manipulative narratives are not legitimate tools of opposition politics.
The APC made it clear that if Obi is expecting President Tinubu to accomplish total transformation of Nigeria in one year, a feat he failed miserably to accomplish in eight years as Governor of Anambra state, is the height of disgraceful hypocrisy.
