Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Monday joined the Anambra State Governor, Charles Chukwuma Soludo, in blasting the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, stating that the poverty rate doubled under his Governorship of Anambra.
Obi, who spoke at Johns Hopkins University in the United States on last Thursday criticized the poverty index under President Bola Tinubu’s administration, warning that Nigeria now has more people living in poverty than China, Indonesia, and Vietnam combined.
In a lecture titled “Politics and Change in Nigeria,” Obi said: “Today, Nigeria’s per capita is about one-fifth of Indonesia’s ($5000) and Vietnam’s (4400) GDP per capita and below one-tenth of China’s (1300) GDP per capita. 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.”
In his famous letter titled “History Beckons and I Will Not Be Silent (Part 1)” and released in November 2022, Governor Soludo accused Obi of allowing poverty to double in the State under his tenure as Governor, adding that he has access to verified information which he would not like to share for the sake of modesty.
“Yes, poverty more than doubled under Peter Obi and more than 50% of Ndi Anambra were in poverty under him. Go and verify! I am Governor and sitting on privileged information which I will not want to use against a political opponent. But on matters of facts, I will always state the same as is. As the saying goes, you can fool some of people some of the time but never all the people all the time. Enough said for now.”
But Sanwo-olu, in a statement titled “Factually Addressing Mr. Peter Obi’s Criticism of Nigeria at Johns Hopkins University,” said Obi is not morally well placed to make “alarming claims” on poverty rate.
“The question then is, what exactly did these countries do to be able to achieve the desired growth and development?”
“That is where political leadership comes in. These comparable nations, and, indeed, other progressive nations, unlike Nigeria, have competent leadership with character, capacity and compassion, committed to prioritising investment in critical areas of developmental measures: education, health, and pulling people out of poverty,” Obi said.
But Sanwo-Olu slammed Obi, saying poverty worsened under his watch as Governor of Anambra State.
“Under Peter Obi as 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%. But after only two years in office, the poverty rate in Anambra jumped to 53.7%.
“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% to 14.8%.
“As such, I am not sure that Mr. Obi is morally well placed to make the alarming claims he made about Nigeria at Johns Hopkins,” he said.
He said Obi contributed to the increase in poverty in Nigeria, but Tinubu as Lagos Governor was responsible for lifting millions out of poverty.
“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 de-market her. That is what true patriotism is about.
“Because Mr. Obi focused on poverty and said that the current administration’s policies are making Nigerians poorer, I will concentrate on that. Any leader can fight poverty generationally by promoting education, improving healthcare, providing credit, and granting access to land.
“Now, 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.
“While he was Governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, the President reduced poverty by more than 46%. There is every reason to believe that, based on what he did as Governor of Lagos, he will repeat the same feat at the federal level. After all, the best predictor of the future is the past.
“But let us examine the messenger, not just the message, and look at the issuer as well as the issues. Mr. Obi talks a good game. But was he able to reduce poverty while he governed Anambra? Perhaps we can let the facts speak for themselves.
“Under Peter Obi as 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%.
“But after only two years in office, the poverty rate in Anambra jumped to 53.7%. 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% to 14.8%.
“As such, I am not sure that Mr. Obi is morally well placed to make the alarming claims he made about Nigeria at Johns Hopkins.
“Mr. Obi contributed to the increase in poverty in Nigeria. Governor Tinubu, as he then was, was responsible for lifting millions out of poverty. Being that that is the case, who should criticise who?”
Picture from unnamed source on YouTube
