Tinubu’s Resignation: I stand With Peter Obi
National Democratic Congress Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi has called for the immediate resignation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over an International Monetary Fund report that Nigeria excluded some public spending from its budgets.
This is the second time in a week Obi has made the call. On Wednesday, July 1, Christian Ebeke, IMF resident representative in Nigeria, said the off-budget spending is worth 2 percent of gross domestic product. He noted that the discrepancy makes Nigeria’s fiscal deficit appear smaller than the government’s actual borrowing needs.
In a statement on Sunday, Obi said the IMF disclosure raises “concerns about the scale of grand corruption” under Tinubu’s administration.
“The IMF now reveals that about N8.83 trillion in expenditure undertaken in 2025 is not reflected in the budget. This expenditure is not budgeted and is therefore not under legislative oversight or administrative scrutiny. This is horrible,” Obi said.
He said the N8.83 trillion amounts to over 35 percent of the N23.96 trillion budgeted for capital projects in 2025, and exceeds the combined 2025 budgets for education, N3.52 trillion, and health, N2.38 trillion.
“If such an amount is properly used and accounted for, it could transform Nigeria’s public health and education sectors. But we cannot account for it,” he said. “This is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern of grand corruption that has become part of this administration.”
The ex-governor of Anambra State reiterated his call for the resignation of Tinubu citing gross incompetence and lack of compassion as well as the non-fulfillment of campaign promises as the reasons for him to throw in the towel.
Obi is right in calling for the call for Tinubu to resign as the President while he was a presidential aspirant said that if electricity didn’t significantly improve, he shouldn’t be given a second term. Therefore, on what basis is he now looking for a second term if those on Band A spend so much money on power and still have to rely on generators and solar to bolster the epileptic power supply.
He abruptly removed fuel subsidy on his inauguration day which made the price of premium motor spirit to skyrocket thereby causing untold hardship for families and businesses. The cost of living has increased tremendously as petrol determines everything in the economy. Children as well as adults now to bed very hungry as most subsist on just one indecent meal a day. Balanced diets are now luxuries as quantity now trumps quality.
Corruption is now the order of the day. The Lagos Coastal road valued at trillions of naira was given to Hi-Tech Construction owned by Gilbert Chagoury without any form of competitive bidding. That is bad enough; worse is that Chagoury and Tinubu are friends as well as business partners with the latter’s son, Seyi sitting on the board of one of the Lebanese businessman’s companies. This is a clear case of a conflict of interest which is also another form of corruption but does President Tinubu care an ounce? Doesn’t he treat Nigeria as a conquered territory the same way Lagos has been under his sinister siege for close to three decades? He has chosen to spare his longtime ally, Femi Gbajabiamila rather than subject him to a proper probe in the latest scandal rocking the Presidency.
According to reports by the World Bank, the poverty rate has exponentially increased under the Tinubu administration with the World Poverty Clock declaring Nigeria as the poverty capital of the entire world.
All professionals especially health workers are fleeing the country in droves to avoid economic repression and psychological torture. I read a recent report that the UK licensed over two hundred Nigerian medical doctors alone for this year.
He has been unable to effectively tackle insecurity which has now entered the South-West – his political base. He blatantly refused to visit Oyo to commiserate with them over the abduction of the school children and the gruesome beheading of a teacher.
Traveling via road is no longer safe at any time of the day and air fares have shot through the roof due to the hike in the price of aviation fuel.
The human rights of dissidents is under serious threat as the likes of Comrade Omoyele Sowore was harassed and detained for no just cause simply for expressing himself on social media.
Political parties are being deregistered which calls into critical question the democratic credentials of President Tinubu especially as he was a former pro-democracy activist. As it stands, Atiku and Obi may not be on the ballot next year.
When Thomas Hobbes described the State of Nature, he may not have had Nigeria in mind but that aptly describes the current reality of the ‘Giant of Africa.’
Since Tinubu can no longer stand the heat in the Kitchen, he has no choice but to do the honourable thing by throwing in the towel. Nigeria isn’t only about him – the economically strangulated people deserve a far better deal.
Tinubu must go!