The vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Rabiu Kwankwaso, has criticised Vice-President Kashim Shettima for describing the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, as “the master of bogus statistics and incoherent economic prescriptions”.
Shettima made the remark on Wednesday during the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Kwankwaso defended Obi, describing him as a politician who understands statistics and generally presents accurate figures.
The former Kano State governor said he regularly verifies the figures Obi cites and had found most of them to be correct. However, he acknowledged that mistakes or slips of the tongue could occasionally occur.
“I always listen to him (Peter Obi), like all others, I take time to check the statistics. As far as I am concerned, most of the figures he was saying were correct and the only thing, of course as human beings you are bound to make mistakes or a slip of tongue as they call it.
“But for him (Shettima) to come and make that statement, I don’t think he is correct. So, I am happy that our presidential candidate is somebody who is conversant with statistics, not only in this country but all over the world, in Europe, Asia, everywhere and I think that is a good one,” Kwankwaso said.
Kwankwaso seeks INEC correction over Kano NDC candidate
Kwankwaso also expressed hope that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would correct the omission of the NDC’s Kano State governorship candidate, Aminu Abdulsalam Gwarzo, from its recently published list of candidates for the 2027 elections.
He said the party had submitted a letter to the commission as requested but had yet to receive a response.
“I just want to tell our supporters especially in Kano that our gubernatorial candidate His Excellency Aminu Abdusalam unfortunately recently, the INEC was not able put his name on the register. Of course, the party and our representatives went to them, there was no answer yet. They asked our party to write to them which we did and I hope INEC will correct that,” he said.