By Our Correspondent
Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s handling of the economy, describing the administration’s reforms as “uncoordinated” and “reactive.”
Obi’s comments come a day after World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told reporters at the State House that Nigeria’s economy had stabilised under Tinubu, saying reforms were “moving in the right direction.” AljazirahNigeria had earlier reported her remarks following her courtesy visit to the President.
In a post on X, Obi wrote: “FDI to Nigeria Declines Amidst Unending Global Galivanting and Uncoordinated Reforms. While the President, Ministers, and other government officials continue their global galivanting in search of FDI, our poor performance in key governance indicators… continues to prove that you cannot attract sustainable foreign investment with poor leadership and governance.”
Citing National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data, Obi noted that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Nigeria fell by about 70% in the first quarter of 2025, dropping to $126.29 million from $421.8 million in the last quarter of 2024.
“Disturbingly, about 90% of the imported capital went into speculative money market instruments… the impact on industrial growth or job creation is highly insignificant and elusive,” he said.
Obi added that Nigeria’s 2024 FDI inflow—at $1.08 billion—was barely 1% of Africa’s total, a 42% drop from 2023. “Worse still… FDI to Nigeria has further declined by 75% between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025,” he lamented.
“We cannot achieve sustainable growth and development with ineffective leadership and a weak government,” he concluded.
