The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi’s new year message, in which he claimed that the political, economic and security situations of the country were worsening daily, was misleading and intended to score cheap political points.
APC, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, said Obi’s claim, at a time when all indicators showed that the country is rebounding in significant measure across all sectors, casts Obi squarely as Nigeria’s leading doomsayer.
Morka said the economy under President Bola Tinubu’s administration has showed steady record of progress – massive balance of trade surpluses; trillions in stock market wealth creation; a surge in foreign direct investments as a result of increased confidence in the economy; enhanced foreign reserve, amongst others.
He said that despite these and other initial beneficial outcomes of ongoing unprecedented reforms, the administration was doubling its effort to ensure that the reforms deliver their fullest benefits for the sustainable growth and transformation of the country.
“In his New Year message, President Bola Tinubu acknowledged that the “cost of food and essential drugs remained a significant concern for many Nigerian households.” To reverse this trend, Mr. President assured that his administration was committed to lowering food prices by boosting food production and promoting local production of drugs.
“Mindful of the threat that the current inflation rate poses to our economy, President Tinubu had also vowed to crash it from 34 percent to 15 per cent in course of this fiscal year. With the vigour in the administration’s war on corruption, evidenced by ongoing investigations and trial of well-heeled Nigerians, Obi’s pontification on the urgent need to tame corruption is a clear case of carrying coal to Newcastle.
“It is a thing of irony that Peter Obi, who now arrogates to himself to be omniscient and philosopher’s stone, when it comes to our nation’s challenges, left no record of significant achievement, let alone transformation of any kind, in his eight-year tenure as Governor of Anambra State.
“Like his co-travellers in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Obi’s obsessive pessimism and endless but futile effort to incite public outrage against the administration is borne out of their realisation that President Tinubu is unwittingly cementing their ultimate political irrelevance by his visionary and full-throttle reform and transformation of the fundamental pillars of our national life,” Morka added.
