In yet another vehement verdict, majoropposition figure Peter Obi has come down hard on President Bola Tinubu as running a country characterised by ubiquitous stealing of public funds.

Mr Obi doubled down on his disdain for the vexatious manner in which he believes the incumbent president is running the affairs of Africa’s most populous nation.

Mr Obi, a former Anambra governor and loser in the contentious 2023 presidential election, has become a thorn in the flesh of Mr Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives, accusing both of rigging him out of the poll in which he came third.

On Wednesday, at a memorial for the late Edwin Clark, the Labour Party’s former presidential candidate, described a former military head of state, Yakubu Gowon, as a saint in contrast to the incumbent president.

“General Gowon, you sacrificed everything. But the country you people sacrificed for has become a crime scene,” Mr Obi alleged.

“What we see today is stealing, stealing, stealing,” Mr Obi said, lamenting that the labour of Nigeria’s past leaders is “in vain”. 

“So we can start picking the pieces now because they’ve destroyed everything people have sacrificed for.

“That’s just the reality. Their (past leaders) labour is in vain. We have a country now that’s not democratic. We are not a democratic country. Let’s tell ourselves the truth. 

“Election that happened in Edo, is it democratic? Everybody knows who won that generation. So why are we saying let their work not be in vain?” Mr Obi explained.

Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga did not immediately respond to Peoples Gazette’s requests for comments on Mr Obi’s claim of looting going on under Mr Tinubu.

This is not the first time Mr Obi has railed against the Tinubu government, describing Nigeria as a crime scene and accusing the government of being populated with thieves who steal the country’s resources.

“For governance, don’t think when we talk about vices, it is only Yahoo boys,” Mr Obi said in January. “There are actually more Yahoo people in government than there are outside because we have turned the entire country into a crime scene where people inside are stealing and people outside are stealing.”

Last month, a disgruntled APC senator, Ali Ndume, alleged that kleptocrats dominated Mr Tinubu’s government.