Washington, D.C., April 25, 2025 — Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, has attributed Nigeria’s worsening poverty crisis to a persistent failure of political leadership. Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., Obi compared Nigeria’s development trajectory over the past 35 years to that of China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, highlighting Nigeria’s alarming decline.
Delivering a lecture titled “Politics and Change in Nigeria”, at the invitation of Professor Peter Lewis, renowned author of Growing Apart: Comparing Indonesia and Nigeria, Obi emphasized that national progress is deeply tied to the quality of governance.
“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,” Obi stated.
“Competent, capable and compassionate political leadership, with integrity, will help nations to achieve sustainable growth and development.”
Citing historical development data, Obi noted that in 1990, Nigeria and the three comparison countries were classified within the medium category of the Human Development Index (HDI). However, he explained that while China, Indonesia, and Vietnam have since moved into the high HDI category, Nigeria has regressed into the low 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. Within the same period of 35 years, from 1990 to 2025, the GDP Per Capita of these comparable nations have all improved,” he said.
Obi also drew attention to Nigeria’s declining economic standing, stating:
“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.”
Expanding on this point, Obi added:
“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 as 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.”
According to Obi, the comparative success of these nations can be traced to focused leadership:
“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.”
Obi’s remarks come as new findings from the World Bank warn of an even bleaker future. The latest Africa’s Pulse report, released at the ongoing Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, projects that more Nigerians will fall into poverty by 2027. Despite Nigeria’s resource wealth, sub-Saharan Africa continues to bear the highest rate of extreme poverty globally, with Nigeria as a significant contributor.
