The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi’s critique of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration as an outburst from someone suffering from “a protracted bout of election failure-induced hangover.”
The National Publicity Secretary of the ruling party, Barrister Felix Morka, made the remarks in a statement on Wednesday while reacting to an interview on Prime Time on Arise Television on Tuesday, attributed to the former Labour Party candidate.
The APC accused Obi of delivering a holistic indictment of the Tinubu administration while deliberately glossing over its achievements across virtually all sectors.
“To be honest, it was painful to watch Mr Obi as he laboured in vain to cobble together any sensible critical economic argument in the face of the stark and undeniable record of progress in the administration’s economic reforms. Even Mr Obi’s trademark opportunistic sensationalisation of transient difficulties that Nigerians have endured in patriotic support of the President’s bold and transformative economic plan availed no respite, as he floundered on national television, framing himself as a portrait of frustration and political desperation.
“Mr Obi’s favourite retort, ‘I would have done better as president,’ must be a symptom of a protracted bout of election failure-induced hangover from which he has not awakened to the reality that he is not the president. Like an unlicensed backseat driver who thinks himself to be a race car driver, Mr Obi needs to tame his bloated and deluded imagination.
“Opposition politics is not about denying the administration’s many successes. It is about critiquing what may be wrong while affirming what is right. It is not about wholesale condemnation intended to mislead and score cheap political gains. The steady progress of the Tinubu administration across sectors is undeniable and evident for all Nigerians to see.”
While enumerating the administration’s strides in turning around the economy, boosting external reserves, fixing comatose refineries, and mitigating inflation, the APC maintained that Tinubu would not be distracted by criticisms from the likes of Obi, who, as Anambra governor, “bequeathed a sordid legacy of economic stagnation, infrastructural decay, ecological disaster, and religious polarisation.”
The statement further read: “Both as former Governor of Lagos State and now as President, Tinubu is a dogged achiever, bold and unwavering in tackling and transforming difficult challenges into opportunities. As he did for Lagos, President Tinubu is now doing for Nigeria, with the economy rebounding steadily, posting productivity-enhanced trade surpluses in successive quarters, with a 3.6 per cent economic growth forecasted for the current fiscal year; with a fast-expanding foreign reserve; with revamped and operational local refineries; with food inflation on the decline; with a successful harmonisation of multiple exchange rates that now supports increased foreign direct investments and the flow of remittances into the economy; and with a reasonably stable forex market.
“The administration has also posted in its success column the cleared $7 billion forex backlog and Ways and Means debt of over $30 billion; with a reduced debt servicing ratio from 98 per cent to about 64 per cent; with increased oil production in excess of 1.8 mbpd, surpassing the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota of 1.5 mbpd for the first time in many years; with a repositioned stock exchange market that is now one of the most profitable in the world; with a vastly expanding agricultural, mining and steel, manufacturing, creative, and several other sub-sectors of the economy, in a push to increase the non-oil contribution to GDP; and with Chatham House only recently adjudging the nation’s economy as the most competitive it has been in 25 years.
“Whereas global institutions and experts are applauding the unfolding silent economic revolution ably led by President Tinubu, Obi and his co-opposition drummers of empty partisan barrels continue to deny President Tinubu’s superlative and incomparable near mid-term successes and achievements.
“President Tinubu remains undistracted and focused on securing good governance and improved economic conditions for all Nigerians.”
Credit: Nigerian Tribune