The Presidency has dismissed Mr. Peter Obi’s call for President Bola Tinubu to resign, describing his remarks as “childish and hollow” political grandstanding and an attempt to draw attention away from the ruling party’s victories in the weekend elections.
Obi had earlier asked the President to resign like the British Prime Minister, citing monumental failures in governance across electricity supply, security, infrastructure and the economy.
However, in a swift response, the Presidency, in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, argued that Obi’s comparison of Nigeria’s situation with the British Prime Minister’s resignation was fundamentally flawed, noting that Nigeria operates a presidential system with a fixed four-year term, not the parliamentary one.
“Peter Obi’s call for President Tinubu’s resignation is childish and hollow. It is not a call to hold the leader accountable. It is merely a political grandstand and an unworthy distraction just hours after President Tinubu’s party recorded resounding victories in the weekend polls,” Onanuga said.
The Presidency pushed back on Obi’s assessment that Nigeria was in its “worst possible condition,” citing what it described as measurable economic progress under Tinubu’s administration.
According to the statement, Nigeria’s foreign reserves had exceeded $50 billion, oil production had risen from under one million barrels per day to approximately 1.8 million, and the All-Share Index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange had grown from 50,000 to over 250,000 points. It also said federation revenue is on course to exceed N30 trillion this year, compared with the 7.7 trillion in 2022.
On security, the Presidency said over 15,000 terrorists had been neutralised, with high profile rescue operations conducted in Borno and the Northwest, and that the administration had invested in drones and advanced surveillance technology to expand counter-insurgency efforts.
The statement also challenged Obi’s claim that Tinubu had promised interrupted 24-hour electricity supply, saying the original campaign pledge had been misrepresented, and pointing to signing of the Electricity Act, nationwide prepaid meter rollouts, and off-grid solar installations as evidence of progress in the power sector.
On the cost-of-living crisis, the Presidency attributed inflationary pressure partly to global disruptions, including the closure of the strait of Hormuz following military exchanges between the United, Israel and Iran.
