A former presidential aide, Mr Reno Omokri, has said that Labour Party’s former presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi, lacks the moral authority to criticise President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies.
The Labour Party’s former candidate recently assessed the President’s performance as below par. He said his economic policies had left many Nigerians poorer than he met them, advising the President to tour the states to experience first-hand the high poverty rate across the country.
However, Omokri, in a statement on Friday, said Obi did not have the moral right to make adverse comments on Tinubu’s economic policies, because as the governor of Anambra State, his people’s poverty level worsened.
“Peter Obi, who worsened poverty in Anambra State, has no moral authority to accuse President Tinubu, who is reducing it,” the former aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan said, adding, “Mr Obi’s recent blunder, in which he urged the President to travel to the states to see the poverty level faced by Nigerians, is just another reminder that the only New Year resolution he appears to have made is to continue to misrepresent statistics through propaganda.”
Omokri recalled that under Tinubu’s watch, Lagos State experienced a reduction in poverty while Obi increased misery in his home state of Anambra State.
“Before Peter Obi took over as Governor of Anambra, poverty in that state was 41.4%. However, under Mr Obi, it grew to 53.7%. This is partly because Peter Obi refused to use the state’s allocations to build infrastructure, preferring to deposit them in his bank to yield interest,” he stated.
He said that rather than building schools and improving the education of his people, the former governor of Anambra State chose to build breweries, which he claimed benefited his family’s interests.
Omokri said Obi’s persistent criticism of Tinubu’s economic policies was mischievous because it discountenanced its increasing gains in the last 18 months.
He said that with the autonomy the President has secured for the local governments, the people at the grassroots level will witness poverty reduction as the councils’ direct funding starts this month.
He pointed out that improved security and local refining of petroleum products would help the President’s efforts to tame inflation. He contended that the former Labour Party presidential candidate was too fixated on president-bashing to see the gains of the ongoing economic reforms.
Omokri said: “Obi is fixated on President Tinubu because he wants the President’s power and the ability to wield it well. Therefore, he is the wrong person to advise about fighting poverty. Obi is the problem. President Tinubu is the solution.
“Obi is blind to the progress happening in Nigeria. Before President Tinubu assumed office, no single refinery in Nigeria worked, and Nigeria depended on imports for our refined petroleum needs.
“However, within 18 months of President Tinubu’s leadership, Nigeria had three major refineries working: the Dangote, Port Harcourt and Warri refineries. We are now a net exporter of Premium Motor Spirits, and this is the first Yuletide season when Nigerians enjoyed both fuel availability and a fuel price reduction.”
The former presidential aide also faulted the former governor’s critique of the President’s foreign trips, pointing out that they were an investment drive. “Mr. Obi talked about the President’s foreign travels. But they are to bring investments to Nigeria, and it is working. FDI has increased by 28% under Tinubu.”
Omokri dismissed Obi’s latest attack on Tinubu as another power grab by a political desperado. “When asked about the so-called merger between his Labour Party, the Peoples Democratic Party and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, he said that though there was not one yet, these parties must come together to ‘defeat the APC’.”
Omokri said this statement showed that the emerging political alliance against the President and his party was not in the people’s interest.
Omokri said: “Just look at that. Not to uplift more Nigerians out of poverty, end insecurity, not to reduce out-of-school children, not to boost local manufacturing, increase foreign direct investment, widen the tax collection base, or even end the situation in the Southeast.
“They just want to unite to defeat the APC. Power is their only goal, not people. No wonder Rabiu Kwankwaso rejected their so-called merger.
“Desperate politicians whose only agenda is to get power at any cost, even if the price is a “religious war” against the Muslim Ummah!
“May God never let them achieve their nefarious plans for Nigeria.”
