{"id":64993,"date":"2025-04-28T11:48:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T11:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=64993"},"modified":"2025-04-28T11:48:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T11:48:05","slug":"sanwo-olu-slams-obi-for-demarketing-nigeria-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/04\/28\/sanwo-olu-slams-obi-for-demarketing-nigeria-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanwo-Olu Slams Obi for ‘Demarketing’ Nigeria Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has lashed out at former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi over critical comments he made about Nigeria during a lecture at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the event, Obi outlined Nigeria\u2019s economic struggles over the past 25 years, blaming missed opportunities and poor governance for the nation’s deepening poverty.<\/p>\n

He compared Nigeria unfavourably with countries like China, Vietnam, and Indonesia, claiming that Nigeria now has more people living in poverty than the three countries combined.<\/p>\n

Reacting sharply, Sanwo-Olu accused Obi of damaging Nigeria\u2019s image on the global stage rather than offering constructive criticism.<\/p>\n

In a statement titled \u201cFactually Addressing Mr Peter Obi\u2019s Criticism of Nigeria at Johns Hopkins University,\u201d he argued that patriotism demands leaders promote their country abroad despite political differences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one thing to criticise a government constructively; it is another to demarket the entire nation on foreign soil. That is not patriotism,\u201d Sanwo-Olu said.<\/p>\n

He questioned Obi\u2019s credibility on poverty issues, citing statistics showing that poverty in Anambra State rose from 41.4 percent to 53.7 percent during Obi\u2019s tenure as governor.<\/p>\n

In contrast, he noted, Obi\u2019s successor, Willie Obiano, reportedly slashed the rate to 14.8 percent.<\/p>\n

Sanwo-Olu also criticised Obi\u2019s record on infrastructure, stating that he failed to build new schools or stand-alone hospitals while in office, weakening his position to lecture others on poverty alleviation.<\/p>\n

Highlighting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu\u2019s efforts, Sanwo-Olu pointed out that Tinubu\u2019s government had already facilitated the construction of over 200 schools, provided credit facilities worth more than 500 million dollars for SMEs, and approved student loans for over 200,000 undergraduates within two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are tangible steps to fight generational poverty\u2014steps that Mr Obi failed to take when he had the opportunity,\u201d Sanwo-Olu said.<\/p>\n

The Lagos governor insisted Obi\u2019s portrayal of Nigeria was selective and misleading, ignoring both his own shortcomings and the broader challenges facing a developing nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has lashed out at former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi over critical comments he made about Nigeria during a lecture at Johns Hopkins University in the United States. Speaking at the event, Obi outlined Nigeria\u2019s economic struggles over the past 25 years, blaming missed opportunities and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":64994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,186],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-64993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64995,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64993\/revisions\/64995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}