Peter Obi urges politicians to focus on reducing poverty, not 2023 elections
- Peter Obi has explained why it would be inappropriate for politicians to focus on the 2023 elections
- The former governor raised concerns over the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nigerians
- Obi suggested that the federal government could have done better in managing the impact of the pandemic
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Peter Obi has advised politicians to focus on improving the Nigerian economy instead of concentrating on their 2023 political aspirations.
Obi, who was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s vice-presidential candidate in the 2019 elections, gave the advice during an appearance on Channels TV’s Sunday Politics.
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He stated what is of importance now is the livelihoods of Nigerians, which he said had become dire due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Obi said:
“For me, it is in discussing how do we put food on people’s table. Elections will come and we can see how to select the best. But let’s deal with the recession we have just entered before 2023.”
The former governor argued that the current administration did not adequately prepare Nigeria for the impact of the pandemic like other countries did.
He said the recent protests which occurred in some parts of the country were a pointer that Nigeria is heading into a problem.
He urged the political class to proffer solutions before the situation gets out of hand.
Meanwhile, official figures published on Saturday, November 21, by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated that Nigeria has entered its second recession in five years.
According to NBS, the nation recorded a contraction of 3.62 per cent in the third quarter of 2020. It said this is the second consecutive quarterly GDP decline since the recession of 2016.
The last time Nigeria recorded such cumulative GDP was in 1987 when GDP declined by 10.8 per cent.
In another report, Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria's former vice president, has said the current recession could have been avoided if President Muhammadu Buhari had heeded the advice given by him and other Nigerians.
He, however, admitted that the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the country's slide into the recession. Atiku also proffered solutions to the economic challenges in the country.
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