As Nigeria marks 25 years of unbroken democracy amidst President Bola Tinubu’s first year in office, harsh criticism has come from 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi who noted that Tinubu has been excellent in continuing Buhari’s legacy of failure. He aired his opinion during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Wednesday.
Obi’s criticism of Tinubu’s reign so far, was laced with critical examination of economic indicators, noting that things have gone totally downhill, with prices of goods and services surging since the president came into power.
Although when asked about President Tinubu’s first year in office and if he has displayed the ability to tackle Nigeria’s many problems, Obi began with words that seemed like showers of praise. However, the sarcasm in his words proceeded to come to light.
He began, “I’ve never made comments about one year in office. The reason why is simple. I would say that president Tinubu has kept to his campaign promises. Throughout the campaign, he consistently maintained that he will continue from where Buhari stopped and he’s done very well. I would say excellent. I’ll give him an excellent pass mark.”
Obi then continued with a critical assessment of the economy saying, “Dollar was 460, it’s now 1,500. Fuel was 238, it’s now about 700. Diesel was 844, it’s now 1,415. A bag of rice was 30-35 thousand is now about 80 (thousand). A bag of beans was similar, 30-35 (thousand), it’s now about 90 (thousand). Garri was 27-28 (thousand), it’s now 49-50 (thousand). A tuber of yam was about 2,700 to 3,000, now it’s about 10,000. Tomato basket was about 40,000, now it’s over 150,000. Electricity that was 66 kilowatts is now over 200 (kw). You can go on and on.
“Our debt, even bread which is the basic thing other countries are subsidising, like Egypt, bread, small medium bread for 450 naira is now 900 naira. The big one was 900, it’s now 1,500. Our debt like I mentioned, was 87 (trillion). By the end of last year, it was actually 97 (trillion), the highest we’ve gone within that short period. Now it’s over 100 trillion. In fact, this year alone, the government, through the central Bank of Nigeria, had issued and taken from the system, over 16 trillion naira. You can imagine the interest at almost 20%. It’s about 3.2 trillion after 12 months. Add that last year, a period of nine months, we spent about 5.7 trillion servicing debt interest and payment, so add that. So, overall, we’ve done well.”
Lamenting the dire situation of the country’s economy, he continued, saying, “Let’s even go back to the overall economy. By the time he took over last year, we were still the biggest economy in Africa with $477 billion as our GDP, followed by South Africa, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. Today, we are number 4. South Africa is number 1 now. I think about $373 billion. Egypt is second, $347 billion, followed by Algeria, 266 (billion) and we are now a 252 billion GDP economy. It’s even worse when you go to per capita. We are actually 1/4 of per capita of the list of these nations that I mentioned. South Africa is over 6,000 per capita, Egypt is 4,000 plus. So is Algeria and then Morocco, which among these is supposed to be the 5th, at 4,210 and we are 1,000 plus. So we actually have gone low. We are coming from a low of per capita of 10,000 plus in 2014.
“Every other thing has headed South. Is it insecurity? It has worsened. Corruption has worsened, adherence to the rule of law has worsened, nepotism is at the highest.”
Melissa Enoch
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