The presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Peter Obi, has criticised Nigeria’s financial state of affairs, saying financial growth is meaningless if citizens proceed to turn into poorer.
Obi made the comment in a put up on X on Saturday, marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. He argued that rising poverty ranges confirmed that the nation was transferring backwards regardless of its plentiful human and pure assets.
He cited figures indicating that Nigeria’s poverty charge rose from 40.1 per cent in 2019 to 56.2 per cent in 2023, with the speed projected to achieve 63 per cent in 2026.
According to him, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are struggling to afford meals and entry healthcare regardless of authorities claims of financial growth.
“What meaning does economic growth have when citizens are getting poorer, hungrier, and more insecure?” he requested.
Obi mentioned progress ought to be measured by enhancements in citizens’ residing circumstances somewhat than financial growth figures alone.
He additionally steered that Nigeria ought to have declared Saturday a public vacation to encourage nationwide reflection on the nation’s rising poverty disaster.
“Perhaps today should have been declared a public holiday, not for celebration, but for national reflection on how a country so richly endowed with human and natural resources has allowed poverty to overcome it,” he mentioned.
The former Anambra State governor maintained that poverty was not Nigeria’s future, arguing that competent management and prudent administration of public assets might assist reverse the pattern.
He known as for elevated funding in schooling and healthcare, in addition to assist for agriculture and small companies, as measures to deal with poverty within the nation.
