Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has strongly criticised Peter Obi over comments he made about Nigeria’s economic decline during a recent engagement at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
Sanwo-Olu, in a statement titled “Factually Addressing Mr. Peter Obi’s Criticism of Nigeria at Johns Hopkins University,” accused the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate of portraying Nigeria in an unflattering light before a global audience, saying he finds Obi’s pattern of behaviour “disturbing.”
“He made unflattering remarks not just about the incumbent Nigerian government but also about Nigeria. I also find Mr Obi’s pattern of behaviour disturbing. When prominent Nigerians go overseas, they ought to project Nigeria positively. They do not have to do that for the government. But we all owe a duty to market Nigeria on the global stage rather than demarket her. That is what true patriotism is about,” Sanwo-Olu said.
At Johns Hopkins, Obi had compared Nigeria’s economic trajectory to that of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, using poverty indexes to highlight how Nigeria, once ahead of those countries, now has more poor people than all three combined.
“In the area of poverty, Nigeria with about 50 million poor people, had the least number of people in poverty in 1990 than any of the three countries. While China had about 750 million people living in poverty, Indonesia and Vietnam had 85 million and 60 million poor people, respectively. China alone had about 15 times the number of poor people than Nigeria. Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these 3 countries combined,” Obi argued.
However, Sanwo-Olu questioned Obi’s moral right to criticise the federal government on issues of poverty, arguing that the former Anambra governor’s own record in office does not support his claims.
“I find it somewhat ironic that a man like Mr Obi, who did not build a single school or a stand-alone hospital throughout his eight-year tenure as governor of Anambra or sustainably provide credit facilities, would criticise the government of Nigeria, which is actively doing that. I say this because the president of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is my predecessor, and as governor of Lagos and now President of Nigeria, has built over 200 schools and provided student loans to more than 200,000 undergraduates of Nigerian tertiary institutions. In less than two years, he has provided over half a billion dollars in credit facilities to small and medium-scale enterprises,” Sanwo-Olu said.
Highlighting Obi’s own contribution to the poverty situation, the Lagos Governor pointed to data showing poverty rates rising during Obi’s tenure.
“Under Peter Obi, a two-term Anambra Governor, poverty in Anambra increased. It did not reduce. Before Peter Obi became Anambra Governor on Thursday, June 14, 2007, the poverty rate in Anambra was 41.4 per cent. But after only two years in office, the poverty rate in Anambra jumped to 53.7 per cent. But the interesting thing is that five years after Peter Obi left office, his successor, Willie Obiano, reduced the poverty rate in Anambra from almost 60 per cent to 14.8 per cent,” Sanwo-Olu said.
He argued that Peter Obi was not in a moral position to make “alarming claims” about Nigeria, asserting that the former governor contributed to the same poverty crisis he now criticises.
