The labour party candidate for the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi has associated the country’s underdevelopment and growing poverty rate to poor governance by political leaders over the years.
Peter Obi also lamented that the country has more poor people than China, indonesia, and Vietnam combined.
He made this statement while giving a lecture on “Politics and Change in Nigeria at John Hopkins University on Thursday. Professor Peter Lewis, the renowned author of “Growing Apart: Comparing Indonesia and Nigeria.” invited him to the event.
Obi stressed on the fact that the fate of the nation is intertwined with the quality of its leadership while sharing the key points of his lecture through his official X page account on Friday.
He said, “Yesterday, at Johns Hopkins University, USA, I honoured the invitation to speak on “Politics and Change in Nigeria” from Professor Peter Lewis, the famous author of “Growing Apart: comparing Indonesia and Nigeria”.
“In discussing this very critical issue, which directly impacts the direction of a nation, I pointed out that the failure of a nation depends largely on its Political Leadership. Competent, capable and compassionate political leadership, with integrity, will help nations to achieve sustainable growth and development.
“In my speech, I tried to assess 3 of our comparable nations – China, Vietnam and Indonesia, from 1990 till date.
“In 1990, the year the measurement of the Human Development Index (HDI) was started, these 3 comparable nations, including Nigeria, were all classified under the medium category of the HDI measurement. 35 years later, 3 of these nations have moved up to the High category of HDI while Nigeria has fallen into the low category.
Peter Obi highlights Nigeria’s GDP from 1990 to 2025
“Within the same period of 35 years, from 1990 to 2025, the GDP Per Capita of these comparable nations have all improved. As of 1990, while Nigeria had a GDP per capita of $556, China had $317, Indonesia had $578, and Vietnam had only $99. Nigeria, obviously, had higher GDP per capita than China, while Vietnam had less than one-fifth of Nigeria’s per capita. Today, Nigeria’s per capita is about one-fifth of Indonesia’s ($5000) and Vietnam’s (4400) GDP per capita and below one-tenth of China’s (1300) GDP per capita.
“In the area of poverty, Nigeria with about 50 million poor people, had the least number of people in poverty in 1990 than any of the three countries. While China had about 750 million people living in poverty, Indonesia and Vietnam had 85 million and 60 million poor people, respectively. China alone had about 15 times the number of poor people than Nigeria. Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these 3 countries combined.
“The question then is, what exactly did these countries do to be able to achieve the desired growth and development? That is where political leadership comes in. These comparable nations, and indeed other progressive nations, unlike Nigeria, have competent leadership with character, capacity and compassion, committed to prioritizing investment in critical areas of developmental measures; Education, Health, and pulling people out of poverty.”
