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 submit on X on Saturday, marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. He argued that rising poverty ranges confirmed that the nation was shifting backwards regardless of its plentiful human and pure sources.
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 succeed in 63 per cent in 2026.
According to him, thousands and 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 must be measured by enhancements in citizens’ residing circumstances moderately than financial growth figures alone.
He additionally instructed 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 sources might assist reverse the pattern.
He referred to as for elevated funding in training and healthcare, in addition to help for agriculture and small companies, as measures to handle poverty within the nation.
