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Former Governor of the Candidate of the State President and Labor Party in 2023, Peter Obi, once again sounded an alarm about the deeper Nigerian poverty crisis, associating it with the failure of continuous political leadership.
Obi made a statement when delivering a lecture entitled “Politics and Change in Nigeria” at Johns Hopkins University, United States, on Thursday. The event was organized by Professor Peter Lewis, Growing Apart Writer: Comparing Indonesia and Nigeria, and a famous scholar about African political economy.
In the lecture, the quote that was distributed on OBI accounts verified X (previously Twitter) on Friday, the former governor withdrew a serious comparison between Nigeria and three Asian, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam countries, highlighting how these countries had issued millions of people from three decades, while Nigeria had carried out millions of people.
“In 1990, the four countries, Nigeria, China, Indonesia and Vietnam were in the same media category of the Human Development Index,” Obi said. “Today, three Asian countries have advanced to the high category, but Nigeria has dropped to the low category.”
Obi shows that the dramatic differences in the results of development cannot be explained by resources alone. “It depends on political leadership,” he said. “Competent, capable and loving leadership based on integrity is what makes a difference between progress and decline.”
He supports his statement with striking economic data. “In 1990, Nigeria had the lowest number of poor people among the four countries, with around 50 million people living in poverty. China has more than 750 million, Indonesia 85 million, and Vietnam 60 million,” he explained. “Today, Nigeria has more poor people than those combined by the three countries.”
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Obi believes that this shift is unintentional, but the results are direct from governance choices. “While these countries have a large investment in education, health care, and social mobility, Nigeria remains mired in poor management and planning mistakes,” he said.
He further noted that Nigerian GDP per capita is now less than one fifth of Indonesia and Vietnam, and less than one -tenth of China.
“Our economy is fighting not because of lack of resources, but because of the lack of vision and execution,” he added. “This is why leadership is important. This sets a tone for national priorities, values, and progress.”
His comments echoed a wider concern submitted by the World Bank in the recent African Pulse report, which was released during the IMF World Bank Spring Meeting in Washington, DC This report warned that, regardless of abundant Nigerian resources, more residents were projected to experience extreme poverty in 2027.
According to the World Bank, Africa Sub-Sahara continues to have the highest concentration of people living in extreme poverty, with Nigeria among the worst affected.
Obi’s message is a call for reflection when Nigeria navigating the ongoing socioeconomic turbulence. In his words: “If we are truly committed to building a better country, we must start with the leadership we choose and the system we build to support them. There is no shortcut to national transformation.”
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