APC tackles Peter Obi, says country’s decline started under PDP

The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, has lampooned the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2023 elections, Mr. Peter Obi, for allegedly promoting self interest against the progress of the country.

APC in a statement titled ‘Peter Obi, a Loquacious and Disruptive Backseat Driver,’ signed by its national publicity secretary, Felix Morka Esq, said the former Anambra State governor has continued to showcase his obsessive devotion to self promotion against the best interest of Nigeria. 

It noted that “Mr. 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 All Progressives Congress government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. 

“His warped conclusion that Nigeria’s economic crisis was caused by nine years of APC-led administration is a highly revisionist, dishonest, distorted and deliberately misleading assessment of the country’s economic trajectory in the last decade. He 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 facts tell a far more complex and different story. 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.”

Morka noted that the growth recorded during the years the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was in power  was due to high price of crude oil and increased government spending that. 

The APC spokesman disclosed that between 2007 and 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. 

According to him, “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. 

“But in his selfish political desperation, Obi will never acknowledge the complexity of the causation of our economic challenges but would rather attempt to scapegoat the APC administration for all of the country’s economic ills while turning a blind eye to the bold and thoughtful policy interventions of President Tinubu’s administration. 

“The administration’s focused and determined efforts to tackle the country’s challenges through diversification, massive infrastructure development, social welfare, agricultural revolution and sustained improvements in national security 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.” 

Morka noted that despite clearing the backlog of the foreign exchange debts owed foreign airlines and other economic actors by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Nigeria’s foreign reserves in the his dispensation have continued to expand, hitting upwards of $34 billion, the highest in recent times, with capital inflow into the country increasing by 66.27 percent this year alone.

According to him, “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, making 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 party therefore, urged the Labour Party leader to take cognisant of the fact that inflaming passion and mobilising outrage through what it described as “false and manipulative narratives” are not legitimate tools of opposition politics.