Lagos, April 25, 2025 – Peter Obi, the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in 2023 elections, says Nigeria has more people living in poverty than China, Indonesia, and Vietnam combined
He attributed Nigeria’s deepening poverty and stalled development to decades of poor political leadership.
Obi said these on Thursday while delivering a lecture tittled “Politics and Change in Nigeria” at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
He shared some of the key points from the lecture in a post on his verified X account on Friday.
Obi expressed regret that Nigeria was regressing, while other countries of the same status 35 years ago like China, Indonesia, and Vietnam had advanced significantly.
“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… 35 years later, 3 of these nations have moved up to the High category of HDI while Nigeria has fallen into the low category,” Obi said.
“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,” he said.
Obi who compared GDP per capita figures of these countries from 1990 and today, said while Nigeria once outpaced China and Vietnam, it now lags significantly behind.
“As of 1990, while Nigeria had a GDP per capita of $556, China had $317, Indonesia had $578, and Vietnam had only $99… 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 ($13,000).
“In 1990… China had about 750 million people living in poverty… Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these 3 countries combined,” Obi said.
