Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, has accused President Bola Tinubu of “feeding Nigerians with wrong statistics” to obscure the country’s economic challenges. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Obi responded to Tinubu’s past criticisms of his data-driven approach to governance.

Obi recounted a campaign event in November 2022, where Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate during the 2023 election, mocked him by saying, “Na statistics we go chop? All I want is to put food on the table of Nigerians.” Obi emphasized that, two years into Tinubu’s four-year term, Nigeria is now ranked among the hungriest nations globally, leaving millions uncertain about where their next meal will come from.

The former governor of Anambra State accused the president of presenting “false data” to create a misleadingly positive image of the economy. He stated, “President Tinubu is now overfeeding Nigerians with wrong statistics — from unemployment figures to inflation rates and now GDP rebasing — all to paint a rosy picture of our deteriorating economic and household conditions.”

Obi further remarked that effective governance requires “sincerity of purpose, character, competence, capacity, and compassion,” asserting that the current administration’s approach falls short of these essential qualities.