The All Progressives Congress (APC) has criticised Peter Obi, accusing the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election of inciting Nigerians against President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

This comes after Mr Obi knocked Mr Tinubu’s government, expressing grave concerns over rising corruption, mismanagement, poverty, hardship, and an escalating debt profile under his leadership since taking office 18 months ago.

In his New Year message, Mr Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, noted that corruption had deeply entrenched itself in the government, and nepotism had become the norm under Mr Tinubu’s administration.

In a counter-statement on Thursday night, the APC dismissed Mr Obi’s remarks, claiming he left no significant achievements during his eight-year tenure as governor of Anambra state.

The statement, signed by APC national spokesperson Felix Morka, accused Mr Obi and members of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of making relentless attempts to incite public outrage against the Tinubu administration.

“Like his co-travellers in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Obi’s obsessive pessimism and endless but futile effort to incite public outrage against the administration is borne out of their realization that President Tinubu is unwittingly cementing their ultimate political irrelevance by his visionary and full-throttle reform and transformation of the fundamental pillars of our national life,” Mr Morka said.

He added: “Obi’s New Year message, in which he claimed that the political, economic, and security situation of our dear country is worsening daily, is misleading and appears intended to score cheap political points. This claim, at a time when all indicators show that our country is rebounding in significant measure across all sectors, casts Obi, squarely, as Nigeria’s leading doomsayer.

“Despite these and other initial beneficial outcomes of ongoing unprecedented reforms, the administration is doubling its effort to ensure that the reforms deliver their fullest benefits for the sustainable growth and transformation of our country.

“In his New Year message, President Bola Tinubu acknowledged that the ‘cost of food and essential drugs remained a significant concern for many Nigerian households.’ To reverse this trend, Mr. President assured that his administration was committed to lowering food prices by boosting food production and promoting the local production of drugs.”

The statement further said: “It is a thing of irony that Peter Obi, who now arrogates to himself the role of being omniscient and a philosopher’s stone when it comes to our nation’s challenges, left no record of significant achievement, let alone transformation of any kind, in his eight-year tenure as Governor of Anambra State.”