The Lamidi Apapa faction of the Labour Party has called out the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, over his recent criticisms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

INTEGRITY NEWS reports that Obi had in recent times criticised the current administration, especially on his X handle.

Reacting in a statement on Tuesday, the National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party faction, Abayomi Arabambi, said Obi was still “basking on the euphoria of 2023 Presidential Election defeat shock”.

Arabambi added that Obi had recently come up with his style of “deceptive politics of shunning out fictitious and unfounded figures and indices on national issues where he lied that the federal government-sponsored Delegation to Dubai was 1,411 as against 422.”

According to Arabambi, Obi’s “destructive criticism” of the Nigerian State on the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery “came from one who is myopic” about the topical issues in the world at large, and Nigeria in particular.

He maintained that “Peter Obi’s outburst of confusion regarding the Walk Free Organisation Global Slavery Index Reports of 2023 has further exposed his shallow intellectual capacity and campaign of calumny against the Nigerian State and further exposed his quest to wallow in character assassination of Mr. President to gain undeserved sympathy.”

The Labour Party factional leader enjoined Nigerians to go through research to get first-hand information themselves, rather than relying on “falsehood”.

He said, “The lies in the form of figures, data, indices and parameters quoted by Peter Obi have been found to be the handiwork of a frustrated self-acclaimed opposition leader, bereft of spirit of patriotism and goodwill to the nation.

“From the 2023 Global Slavery Index Reports by the Walk Free Organisation, the country rated with the highest rate of people experiencing modern slavery in 2023 in the world was North Korea. So, Peter Obi ought to have embarked on in-depth research before coming to the public sphere to dish out fake indices and data.

“In Africa, the countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery are Eritrea, Mauritania and South Sudan. Nigeria is adjudged to be a country enjoying minimal cases of modern slavery.

“Coming to the world in general, the latest Global Slavery Index Reports produced by human rights groups, Walk Free Organisation, revealed the ten countries with the highest prevalence of modern slavery.

“In the descending order of magnitude were North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Tajikistan, UAE, Russia, Afghanistan, and Kuwait,” the statement said.

Arabambi declared, “The LP National Chairman, Alh Bashiru Lamidi Apapa therefore distances the party from the unguided utterances of Peter Obi, who is well known for cooking up figures, data and indices to deceive the gullible Nigerians and his daft infamous ethnic irredeemable, irresponsible, irredentist Obi-dient supporters.

“Nigerians must disregard the malicious and false erroneous piece, dished out by Peter Obi on the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, since Nigeria had cleared herself from the menace of slavery since 1945.”