Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi has admitted that he and his compatriots elected “thieves” to manage Nigeria’s resources.
“The only thing wrong with Nigeria is that we hire thieves to manage our resources, people who have not created wealth,” Obi said at his official declaration for the ADC presidential ticket in Akwa Ibom on Saturday. “You cannot hire a thief to look after your wealth; he will definitely steal it.”
Earlier this month, Obi said Nigeria “is not a poor country” but “it is poorly governed.”
“Remember us in your prayers that God should touch our hearts to use public money for public good,” he told Nigerians. “Please do remember we politicians in your prayers. We are the problem of Nigeria. No other person.”
He also criticised President Bola Tinubu for poor budget management.
“President Tinubu inherited a legally signed N21.83 trillion budget for 2023. A few months after taking office, he presented a N2.17 trillion supplementary budget that faced widespread criticism for prioritising benefits for public officeholders at a time when Nigerians were enduring painful economic reforms without a credible social protection framework.
“Instead of restoring fiscal discipline, the president repeatedly expanded the 2023 budget without a clearly defined end date,” Obi explained.
The ADC leader added, “This lack of transparency is not accidental; it reflects a deliberate pattern of undermining public scrutiny and debate. The federal government has stopped publishing treasury reports on the opentreasury.gov.ng portal, dismantling a vital transparency framework inherited from the previous administration. In 2025, no budget implementation report was released, regardless of how poor the performance was! No nation can operate with such recklessness and succeed.”
Speaking to supporters in Akwa Ibom on Saturday, Obi said “Anybody who refused to count our votes in 2027, we will ‘count’ him.”
