The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general elections, Peter Obi, has raised fresh concerns over Nigeria’s worsening poverty levels, blaming the situation on decades of political leadership failure.
According to Obi, Nigeria has, since 1990, fallen behind its developmental peers and now harbours more poor people than China, Indonesia, and Vietnam combined.
The former Anambra State governor made the assertion during a lecture titled “Politics and Change in Nigeria” at Johns Hopkins University in the United States on Thursday on the invitation of Professor Peter Lewis, a renowned political economist and author of Growing Apart: Comparing Indonesia and Nigeria, which examines the contrasting development trajectories of the two countries.
In a post shared on his verified X (formerly Twitter) account on Friday, Obi said Nigeria’s retrogression was not by accident, but the result of the persistent failure of political leadership to prioritize development-focused policies.
“I pointed out that the failure of a nation depends largely on its Political Leadership,” Obi said.
Nigeria vs Peers: A Story of Diverging Paths
Drawing comparisons with three Asian nations—China, Indonesia, and Vietnam—Obi provided a damning analysis of how Nigeria has failed to match their pace of development over the past three decades.
He noted that in 1990, when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) began measuring the Human Development Index (HDI), all four countries were classified in the medium category. However, while China, Indonesia, and Vietnam have progressed into the high HDI category, Nigeria has slipped into the low category.
“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 of the HDI measurement. 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 noted.
Obi also provided a historical overview of GDP per capita trends, revealing that Nigeria was once ahead of China and Vietnam in terms of individual income, but that is no longer the case.
“As of 1990, while Nigeria had a GDP per capita of $556, China had $317, Indonesia had $578, and Vietnam had only $99. Nigeria, obviously, had a higher GDP per capita than China, while Vietnam had less than one-fifth of Nigeria’s per capita. Today, Nigeria’s GDP 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,” he said.
The LP presidential candidate expressed alarm that Nigeria, which once outperformed some of these economies, now significantly lags behind due to a lack of strategic governance and underinvestment in critical sectors.
Rising Poverty Amid Global Progress
Obi’s most jarring revelation was Nigeria’s current standing in global poverty metrics. He stated that while China had nearly 750 million people in poverty in 1990, the country has successfully lifted most of them out, thanks to intentional and consistent policy actions.
“Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these 3 countries combined,” Obi lamented.
More insights
That more than 1 in every 7 of the world’s poorest people lives in Nigeria raises urgent questions about the country’s development path.
The World Bank revealed that the region accounted for 80% of the world’s 695 million extremely poor people in 2024.
