Tinubu has performed exceptionally in his first year — Peter Obi
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in 2023, Peter Obi said he thinks President Bola Tinubu has performed exceptionally in his first year.
Obi sarcastically stated this in an appraisal of President Tinubu’s one year in office while speaking on Arise Television.
He said, “I think President Tinubu has performed exceptionally well in his first year in office. He has kept his campaign promises. In his words, ‘I will continue from where Buhari stopped’ and he has done so.”
Recall that Obi had earlier in his Democracy Day post on Wednesday urged Nigeria to re-examine its democratic journey, saying the country has deteriorated into “classical state capture” rather than a government for the people.
The former governor of Anambra State lamented that Nigeria’s democratic experience has been marred by leadership failures.
He said these failures have resulted in uncontrolled systemic corruption, high levels of insecurity, lack of freedom of speech, increasing poverty rates and unprecedented levels of hunger and hardship, which remain unsolved and are growing geometrically.
Obi noted that “true democracy” should be people-oriented, where the rights of citizens are respected, the laws are obeyed, and the leaders remain accountable to the people but the opposite is the case for Nigeria.
He added that the country is not truly democratic and has only produced the vices enumerated above.
Obi noted that the country’s democracy index score of 4.23 ranks it low on the Global Democracy Index, while its corruption perception index ranking of 145th out of 180 countries shows a high level of corruption in Nigeria.
He noted that the country has ranked 120th out of 142 countries measured in the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index, indicating that Nigeria suffers from gross disobedience to the rule of law.
Obi stated, “As our dear nation marks Democracy Day today, commemorating 25 years of striving to be a democratic country, the fundamental question for all of us remains: Are we truly democratic?
“An unexamined life is not worth living, so it is now time to re-examine what we have been doing over this quarter of a century. Democracy, as we know, is the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
“While we may say that in 1999 we started in earnest in the right direction, today we have deteriorated into what can be classified as classical state capture. Instead of benefiting all, it has become a deprivation to all.”