Former Anambra State Governor and 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has accused President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of deliberately manipulating economic statistics to mislead Nigerians about the true state of the nation’s economy.
In a strongly worded post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Obi claimed the Tinubu administration is using “wrong statistics” on unemployment, inflation, and GDP to present a misleadingly positive picture, despite rising poverty and worsening living conditions across the country.
Recalling a 2022 campaign moment in Delta State, Obi wrote, “In November 2022, while campaigning, Bola Tinubu mocked me for relying on statistics, saying, ‘Na statistics we go chop?’ Now, two years into his four-year tenure, Nigeria is classified as one of the hungriest nations in the world.”
Obi continued, “President Tinubu is now overfeeding Nigerians with wrong statistics—from unemployment figures to inflation rates and now GDP rebasing all to put a positive spin on our deteriorating economic and household conditions.”
He emphasized that effective governance requires “sincerity of purpose, character, competence, capacity, and compassion,” warning that attempts to gloss over the economic hardship faced by millions will only deepen public mistrust.
Obi’s remarks come amid a mix of economic indicators from both domestic and international sources. The World Bank’s April 2025 Africa’s Pulse report ranked Nigeria as the country with the highest share (19%) of extremely poor people in sub-Saharan Africa meaning roughly one in every seven of the world’s poorest people lives in Nigeria.
The report added that the region, led by Nigeria, accounted for 80% of the world’s 695 million extremely poor in 2024.
Meanwhile, data from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed a modest decline in headline inflation, which eased to 22.22% in June 2025 from 22.97% in May. On a year-on-year basis, the June inflation figure represents a significant drop from the 34.19% recorded in June 2024. However, monthly inflation rose slightly to 1.68% in June from 1.53% in May, indicating accelerating price pressures in the short term.
While the government has touted these numbers as signs of economic recovery, critics like Obi argue that the reality on the ground contradicts the official narrative. In April 2025, he noted that Nigeria had more poor people than China, Indonesia, and Vietnam combined countries with far larger populations.
The accusations mark the latest in a series of critiques by Obi, who has positioned himself as a vocal opposition figure since the 2023 elections. With poverty and inflation continuing to dominate national discourse, the debate over economic data credibility is likely to intensify ahead of the 2027 general elections.
