Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu for what he described as the “deliberate misrepresentation of Nigeria’s economic realities” through questionable statistics on inflation, unemployment, and GDP growth.
The former governor on Monday in a statement said that two years into the Tinubu administration, Nigeria has become one of the hungriest nations in the world, with millions of citizens unable to afford basic necessities.
He reminisced about a moment during the 2023 campaign in Delta State when then-presidential candidate Tinubu mocked his emphasis on data-driven governance, saying ‘Na statistics we go chop? All I want is to put food on the table of Nigerians’.
“Today, two years into his four-year tenure, the reality on the ground is clear,” Obi said.
“Nigeria is now one of the hungriest nations on earth. Millions of our people are going to bed hungry, not knowing where their next meal will come from.”
Obi accused the Tinubu-led government of “overfeeding Nigerians with wrong statistics,” particularly in its recent presentations of inflation and unemployment figures.
“President Tinubu is now overfeeding Nigerians with wrong statistics – from faulty unemployment data, misleading inflation figures, to a dubious GDP rebasing – all aimed at putting a positive spin on our worsening economic and household conditions,” he stated.
The former Anambra State governor stressed that governance is not a gamble or an experiment, but a serious responsibility that requires integrity and competence.
“Governance is not rocket science. It is not a game of trial and error. Like I have always said, it demands sincerity of purpose, character, competence, capacity, and above all, compassion,” Obi declared.
