Two years into the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria has been classified as one of the hungriest nations globally, with millions of citizens uncertain of where their next meal will come from.
Reacting to the grim reality, former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, criticised President Tinubu’s economic policies and leadership approach, accusing the administration of manipulating data to conceal the true state of the nation’s economy.
In his Facebook post on Monday, Obi recalled Tinubu’s campaign remarks in Delta State in November 2022, where the then-presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) derided other contenders and dismissed the use of data and statistics in governance.
According to him, Tinubu had said, “Na statistics we go chop? All I want is to put food on the table of Nigerians.”
Obi noted that two years into the Tinubu administration, Nigerians are hungrier than ever, while the government continues to “overfeed the public with wrong statistics from questionable unemployment figures to disputed inflation rates and now a controversial GDP rebasing — all aimed at masking the deteriorating economic and household conditions.”
He added that governance is not a gamble or an experiment, but a serious responsibility that demands “sincerity of purpose, character, competence, capacity, and compassion.”
The former Anambra State governor further reaffirmed his belief that “a new Nigeria is POssible,” calling for a return to principled, people-centered leadership that prioritises the welfare of ordinary Nigerians over political expediency.
