The Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has criticized President Bola Tinubu for allegedly “feeding Nigerians with wrong statistics” to divert attention from the nation’s deepening economic challenges.
In a post shared on his X handle on Monday, Obi referenced comments made by Tinubu, who contested the last presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), alleging that the president ridiculed his approach to governance based on accurate data.
“In November 2022, while campaigning in Delta state, Tinubu said he was ashamed to call my name and mocked me, saying, ‘Na statistics we go chop? All I want is to put food on the table of Nigerians,” Obi said.
Obi pointed out that, despite such remarks, “two years into his four-year tenure, Nigeria is ranked among the hungriest nations in the world, with millions unsure of where their next meal will come from.”
He went on to accuse President Tinubu of employing “false data” to create the illusion of economic progress, rather than addressing the real suffering faced by Nigerians.
“President Tinubu is now overfeeding Nigerians with wrong statistics — from unemployment figures to inflation rates and now GDP rebasing — all to paint a rosy picture of our deteriorating economic and household conditions,” Obi added.
He concluded by reiterating that “Governance is not rocket science. It is not a gamble. It requires sincerity of purpose, character, competence, capacity and compassion.”