•Peter Obi
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has advised President Bola Tinubu to take a cue from his Argentine counterpart, Javier Gerardo Milei, to address Nigeria’s economic woes.
Obi said that the Argentine leader inherited a battered economy with over 52 per cent of citizens living in poverty in 2024, with an inflation rate above 200 per cent, but has attained significant milestones through competent leadership, reports The Guardian.
According to him, under Milei’s rule, Argentina’s poverty rate has fallen to 38.1 per cent from 52 per cent, and extreme poverty fell to 8.2 per cent, with inflation just around two to three per cent monthly, within 2 years.
The former Anambra State governor said this in a post on his X handle, yesterday.
He said: “In our country today, hunger and poverty are not just distant statistics; they are the harsh reality that millions of our people face daily.
“Recently, the United Nations (UN) said that about 34 million Nigerians would face acute food insecurity, and about 63 per cent of our population, which is about 133 million people, now live in multidimensional poverty.
“Inflation, even with the suppressed statistics, is nearly 30 per cent, while unemployment and economic mismanagement have nearly wiped out our once vibrant middle class.
“Families who once lived stable lives are now slipping into poverty.
“But this is not just ordinary; it is as a result of bad leaders without capacity and compassion, who are not interested in putting the Nigerian people first in their actions.”
However, a human rights activist and lawyer, Dele Farotimi, has backed Peter Obi’s call for a single-term presidency, noting that past Nigerian leaders have squandered longer tenures without delivering meaningful progress.
Farotimi, who spoke, yesterday, during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, said: “Obasanjo had eight years, what did he do with it? (Muhammadu) Buhari had eight years; what did he do with them? President Bola Tinubu has had two years, and he is taking us back 50 years.
“So, it’s not really about how much time the person spends; it is a function of what they do with the time that they have.”
Farotimi also emphasised that achieving lasting impact does not depend on a prolonged stay in office.
