Chidi Samuel|
The vice presidential debate organised by the Nigerian Elections Debate Group (NEDG) and the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), took place in Abuja on Friday with fireworks exchanged between Yemi Osinbajo, vice-presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peter Obi, vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Peter Obi, vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), faulted the government’s economic policy, stating that corruption can be fought aggressively while at the same time attention is paid to the economy.
Obi said, “In 2015, unemployment and underemployment was 24%, today it’s 40. In 2015, we were attracting N21 billion in foreign direct investments, we attracted only 12 last year. That means it’s going low. Our GDP was 520 in 2015, and per capita was 2, 500, today it’s under 1, 900. If you look at our stock market, it has lost over N2 trillion in one year,” he said.
“You are not creating jobs, you are not doing the right thing, and you are just fighting corruption. You can’t shut down your shop and be chasing criminals.”
In his response, Osinbajo said government would not be able to do all it wants if corruption is not eradicated.
He countered, “If you allow criminals to steal all the inventories in the shop, there will be no shop.”
“And what has happened in Nigeria in the past 16 years is what the World Bank told us that the major cause of our poverty is corruption. So, let me say that there is no way we can minimise what has happened. You can’t minimise corruption. If you minimise it, we run the risk of completely… in fact, the argument is lost. We cannot do what we want to do unless we are able to minimise corruption or eradicate it completely. This is what we are trying to do.”
Other vice presidential candidates at the debate include, Abdullahi-Getso of YPP, Ganiyu Galadima of ACPN, and Khadijah Abdullahi of ANN.
