Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has slammed the 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter for de-marketing Nigeria. The Lagos governor who cited Obi’s time as governor of Anambra state said he has no moral rights to criticised the federal government.
Obi, a member of the Labour Party has recently criticised the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC-led federal government which he blamed for the povertyin the country.
The former Anambra helmsman had last week claimed that the ruling APC led federal government has mismanaged the country’s economy so much so that poor people in Nigeria is now more than the combined figure in China, Indonesia and Vietnam.
According to him, the three countries once categorised alonside Nigeria in the area of Human Development index, HDI, have changed their story while Nigeria’s situation has gone from bad to worse.
The former presidential candidate spoke at the John Hopkins University in the United State, recently his remark is vied in government quarters to be very antagonistic, as some administration’s officials have taken time to rebuff him.
“In the area of poverty, Nigeria with about 50 million poor people, had the least number of people in poverty in 1990 than any of the three countries. While China had about 750 million people living in poverty, Indonesia and Vietnam had 85 million and 60 million poor people, respectively. China alone had about 15 times the number of poor people than Nigeria. Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these 3 countries combined,” Obi said.
Reacting, Governor Sanwo-olu said the former Anambra state governor, as governor, did not leave any legacy in the area of education and health, wondering why he has the audacity to criticised the federal government, noting that the current administration has performed well in these areas, citing the tertiary institution loan to studenst and dozens of school build by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Lagos governor.
President Tinubu and Sanwo-olu are in the same APC, the ruling party at the centre.
The Lagos helmsman also accused Obi of being unpatriotic, saying he should be marketing the country abroad, to attract investment into the country instead of speaking ill of her, adding that “we all owe a duty to market Nigeria on the global stage rather than demarketing her. That is what true patriotism is about,”
He urged Obi to stop making “alarming claims” about the country, blaming the former governor for contributing to the “poverty’ in the country.
Sanwo-Olu titled his reaction, “Factually Addressing Mr. Peter Obi’s Criticism of Nigeria at Johns Hopkins University. ”
Obi “made unflattering remarks not just about the incumbent Nigerian government but also about Nigeria. I also find Mr Obi’s pattern of behaviour disturbing. When prominent Nigerians go overseas, they ought to project Nigeria positively,’ Sanwo-olu said.
“They do not have to do that for the government. But we all owe a duty to market Nigeria on the global stage rather than demarket her. That is what true patriotism is about.”
Adding that, “I find it somewhat ironic that a man like Mr Obi, who did not build a single school or a stand-alone hospital throughout his eight-year tenure as governor of Anambra or sustainably provide credit facilities, would criticise the government of Nigeria, which is actively doing that.
“I say this because the president of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is my predecessor, and as governor of Lagos and now President of Nigeria, has built over 200 schools and provided student loans to more than 200,000 undergraduates of Nigerian tertiary institutions.
“In less than two years, he has provided over half a billion dollars in credit facilities to small and medium-scale enterprises.”
“Under Peter Obi, a two-term Anambra Governor, poverty in Anambra increased. It did not reduce. Before Peter Obi became Anambra Governor on Thursday, June 14, 2007, the poverty rate in Anambra was 41.4 per cent.
“But after only two years in office, the poverty rate in Anambra jumped to 53.7 per cent. But the interesting thing is that five years after Peter Obi left office, his successor, Willie Obiano, reduced the poverty rate in Anambra from almost 60 per cent to 14.8 per cent.
“As such, I am not sure that Mr. Obi is morally well placed to make the alarming claims he made about Nigeria at Johns Hopkins. Mr Obi contributed to the increase in poverty in Nigeria,” the Lagos governor said.
The magazine reported that the International Monetary Fund, IMF, had in its latest report asserted that the poverty level in the country will continue to get worse up to 2027 when the Tinubu administration is expected to wind down its first term in office. The president, according to him, will seek a re-election.
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