The Nigerian Presidency, through the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has criticized former presidential candidate Peter Obi for allegedly providing misleading and inaccurate statistics on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Obi, in a recent post, discussed Nigeria’s GDP growth from 1999 to 2017, stating that the country experienced a decline in GDP after 2014. However, Onanuga disputed these claims and accused Obi of cherry-picking data to present a distorted view of the nation’s economic performance.
PM NEWS
The Presidency has attacked a former presidential candidate, Peter Obi for coming up with misleading and half-truth statistics on Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Obi had on Monday in an X post said when Nigeria returned to democratic governance in 1999, it maintained an average GDP growth of about 6.72% for 16 years from 1999-2014.
He said the impressive growth trajectory, unfortunately, was not sustained by the then-new government and the nation’s GDP growth collapsed to 2.79% in 2015 and then sank into a recession in 2016 with a negative growth of -1.58% and 0.82% in 2017.
“For the past 9 years, Nigeria’s economy has seen unprecedented retrogression on many fronts. In 2014, just before the inception of a new administration a year later, Nigeria had the biggest economy in Africa with a Gross Domestic Product of $568.5 billion and a GDP Per Capita of about $3,200.
“Our economic indices pointed towards hope and prospects for the future growth of the economy. Nine years later, the giant of Africa has retrogressed to the 4th largest economy in Africa,” Obi said.
But the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga countered Obi over what he called misleading statistics.
He wondered why Obi would be reviewing the economy at this time, saying the motive is clear.
Onanuga said emphatically that Obi wanted to work up his mob plotting to destabilise the country from next week.
Onanuga wrote in reply to Obi’s comment on his X page: “Labour Party failed presidential candidate, Peter Obi has come up with his misleading, half-truth statistics again.
“The big question is why this economic review at this time?. The motive is clear: he wants to work up his mob plotting to destabilize the country from next week.”
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