Former Governor Adams Oshiomhole yesterday said Labour Party’s standard bearer, Peter Obi, causes high unemployment in Nigeria.
According to him, Obi promotes high unemployment by operating an Abuja supermarket that only sells imported goods.
Oshiomhole made this claim at the weekend as he launched a campaign for Senate seat in the National Assembly.
He wants to represent Edo North District on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Vanguard newspaper quoted him as saying that “Obi owns the biggest shopping mall in Abuja and all the items sold there are imported.”
“If he is selling imported wines, clothes and other items, he is contributing to why Nigeria is going down because he is creating jobs abroad and importing unemployment to Nigeria,” Oshiomhole said.
With this claim, Oshiomhole returns to his pet project of bashing his party’s opposition on job creation.
It was the same in 2019 when, as party chairman, he similarly attacked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of promoting unemployment.
He boasted then that the APC laid a foundation for creation of millions of jobs through infrastructure development.
The country’s unemployment rate however almost doubled in the first year of APC administration in 2016.
It has remained very high since. Government statisticians forecast unemployment rate to clmb to 33 percent this year 2022.
Similarly, Oshiomhole set very poor record of employment in Edo State, including inability to attract significant foreign investment that created jobs.
He governed the State between 2008 and 2016.
The unemployment rate was 15.6% in 2008 when he took office. In three years, it nearly doubled (27.9%), and continued to climb until he handed over power.
Oshiomhole also took a similar swipe at Obi as PDP vice presidential candidate in 2019.
Mr Peter Obi, he said at the time, did “not have the moral authority to speak on jobs.”
Obi “deals in Made-in -China goods, exporting jobs, … the reason he always quoted figures from China at any gathering,” he alleged.
Obi causes high unemployment in Nigeria
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