The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has slammed the presidential candidate of the opposition Labour Party in the 2023 general elections, Mr. Peter Obi, over his scathing criticism of the performance of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration.
APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Felix Morka, in a statement, Wednesday in Abuja wondered why Obi while on Arise TV thought he would have done better than President Tinubu in implementing his economic policy reforms.
APC remarked that it was painful to watch Obi as he laboured in vain to cobble together any sensible critical economic argument in the face of a stark and undeniable record of the progress of the Tinubu administration’s economic reforms.
APC likened Obi to an unlicensed backseat driver who thinks himself to be a race car driver, who needs to tame his bloated and deluded imagination.
APC insists that Obi’s pedigree and track record in public service is nowhere near that of President Tinubu since the return to Democratic rule in the country.
APC contended that 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.
The party thereby stressed that Tinubu remains undistracted and focused on securing good governance and improved economic conditions for all Nigerians.
“Opposition politics is not about denying the administration’s many successes. It is about critiquing what may be wrong but affirming what is right. It is not about wholesale condemnation that is only intended to mislead and score cheap political gains,” Morka said.
“The steady progress of the Tinubu-administration across sectors is undeniable and evident for all Nigerians to see. It is hysterical that Mr Obi, who was governor of a failed and forgotten administration in Anambra state of only 21 local government areas would so brazenly boast of his capacity to govern Africa’s largest democracy. Obi bequeathed a sordid legacy of economic stagnation, infrastructural decay, ecological disaster, and religious polarization.
“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.”
APC argued that 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 percent economic growth forecast 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 harmonization of multiple exchanges rates that now supports increased foreign direct investments and flow of remittances into the economy; and with a reasonably stable forex market.”
The party pointed out that the administration also has posted in its success column the cleared $7billion forex backlog, and Ways and Means debt of over $30billion; with reduced debt serving ratio from 98 per cent to about 64 percent; with increased oil production in excess of 1.8 mbpd, surpassing the Organisation of Petroluem Exporting Countries (OPEC) quota of 1.5mbpd 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, Mine 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 the Chatham House only recently adjudging the nation’s economy as the most competitive it has been in 25 years.
