Your behaviour is disturbing — Sanwo-Olu blasts Peter Obi for ‘demarketing’ Nigeria in US
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has tackled Peter Obi over the perceived disparaging comment he made about Nigeria at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
The Lagos Governor said Obi lacks the moral right to talk about poverty in Nigeria.
During his recent engagement at Johns Hopkins University, the 2023 Labour Party Presidential candidate painted a picture of how Nigeria fell off economically within 25 years, leading to an astronomic increase in the poverty rate.
Using the poverty index, Obi compared Nigeria, China, Indonesia and Vietnam to analyse Nigeria’s rising poverty rate.
He explained that, in 1990, when the Human Development Index (HDI) measurement started, Nigeria, China, Vietnam and Indonesia were all classified under the medium category of the HDI measurement.
According to him, Nigeria had the fewest people in poverty in 1990, and 35 years later, it has more poor people than China, Indonesia and Vietnam combined.
“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,” Obi argued.
Reacting, Governor Sanwo-Olu in a statement titled, “Factually Addressing Mr. Peter Obi’s Criticism of Nigeria at Johns Hopkins University,” accused Obi of making disparaging comments about Nigeria.
He said he finds Obi’s pattern of behaviour disturbing, indicating that his comments about Nigeria on the global stage don’t project the country positively.
“He made unflattering remarks not just about the incumbent Nigerian government but also about Nigeria. I also find Mr Obi’s patter
