The Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has expressed concern over the state of politics in Nigeria.
He shared his thoughts while speaking at Johns Hopkins University, United States of America.
In his address at the event, he condemned what he referred to as the transactional nature of politics in Nigeria.
“In the transactional politics of Nigeria, people pay them to cause confusion. As I am here now, go to social media—all those that are being paid N20,000, N40,000 monthly to abuse you are youths whom you are fighting for, for their lives. Because I am over 60, I have just a few years to go,” he noted.
Speaking further, Peter Obi noted that Nigeria needs competent leadership to achieve its desired development.
“In my speech, I tried to assess three of our comparable nations—China, Vietnam, and Indonesia—from 1990 to date.”
“In 1990, the year the measurement of the Human Development Index (HDI) was started, these three comparable nations, including Nigeria, were all classified under the medium category of the HDI measurement,” he stated in a statement shared after the programme.
He further noted: “Thirty-five years later, three of these nations have moved up to the High category of HDI, while Nigeria has fallen into the low category.
“Within the same period of 35 years, from 1990 to 2025, the GDP per capita of these comparable nations has all improved. As of 1990, while Nigeria had a GDP per capita of $556, China had $317, Indonesia had $578, and Vietnam had only $99. Nigeria, obviously, had a higher GDP per capita than China, while Vietnam had less than one-fifth of Nigeria’s per capita.
“Today, Nigeria’s per capita is about one-fifth of Indonesia’s ($5,000) and Vietnam’s ($4,400) GDP per capita and below one-tenth of China’s ($13,000) GDP per capita.”
In the statement, he lamented the state of poverty in the country, saying, “In the area of poverty, Nigeria, with about 50 million poor people, had the least number of people in poverty in 1990 among the four countries. While China had about 750 million people living in poverty, Indonesia and Vietnam had 85 million and 60 million poor people, respectively.
“China alone had about 15 times the number of poor people than Nigeria. Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these three countries combined.”
Peter Obi argued that while other countries invested in education and healthcare, which helped lift people out of poverty, Nigeria’s leadership failed in this regard.
