Former governor of Anambra state and vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi, says Nigeria’s poverty crisis is getting worse daily and that the ruling All Progressives Party must take the blame for the depreciation in the quality of the general well being of Nigerians.
According to Obi, since the APC assumed the mantle of leadership in the country in 2015, everything has been negative, with six Nigerians being pushed into the poverty trap every minute.
Obi made the claim Monday while featuring on the ARISE News TV morning show where he lamented that since the APC government came in, millions of people had lost their jobs.
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He said, “between January and September this year alone, over 4 million people have lost their jobs. Every minute, six Nigerians are being push into poverty. Go to the market now, there is no demand, people don’t have money to do anything.”
On the country’s building debt crisis, Obi said a couple of months ago, he raised the alarm about the development but no one listened to him because he was not a renown economist.
He added that while he was not against borrowing, there must be credible reasons for borrowing, and such reasons must also be explained to Nigerians.
“On May 1, 2017, I said the country’s debt level is too high, the debt keep getting worse, everybody was busy playing politics. The Minister of Finance then said debt to GDP; I said minister, I have managed money all my life, these people who are contesting today, I have managed money more than they have managed money as a businessman. All my life, I know when things get wrong. But, then because I wasn’t a famous economist, no one listened to me. Today, IMF, World Bank have said the same thing.
“We are using almost 60 per cent of our revenue to service debts, we are borrowing more. We are not making investment. We are spending the money we borrow to pay salaries. As me and you are speaking today (Monday), Nigeria’s financial system, National Assembly, everybody is flying to London to borrow more money. This is what we should be discussing. What is this money going to be used for? Not discussing whether Peter Obi came from Anambra or Imo.”
Reacting to a statement credited to the governor of Kaduna State that there is “no single thinking brain” left in the PDP, Obi asked; if all the good brains are in APC as claimed, why is the country not working?
He stated: “Well, all of them are in APC but the country is not working. All the good brains are in APC, yet the country is collapsing. That’s all I can say.
“When APC came, this country was growing at 6 per cent, since they came look at where we are, everything has been heading south, not one item is positive.”
On the search on the presidential candidate of PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, by security agencies when he arrived Abuja Airport on Sunday, Obi claimed that opposition leaders were being targeted for persecution.
He explained that Atiku’s priority areas include education, security, and also the unity of the country that had been so divided under the current administration.
Obi said PDP was focused on bringing the country back to where it used to be.
