‘Don’t De-market The Country You Want To Lead’ — Sowunmi Cautions Peter Obi

A prominent figure in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Sowunmi, has cautioned former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, urging him to stop painting Nigeria in a negative light during his international engagements.

Naijaonpoint reports that this counsel comes less than 24 hours after Sowunmi made a public appeal for Obi to return to the PDP ahead of the 2027 general elections.

The PDP stalwart’s latest comments were triggered by Obi’s recent remarks made during a visit to Johns Hopkins University in the United States, where he analysed Nigeria’s development trajectory in comparison with countries such as China, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Obi had taken to his 𝕏 handle to share the contents of his presentation, in which he pointed out that in 1990, when the Human Development Index (HDI) measurements commenced, Nigeria, alongside China, Vietnam, and Indonesia, were all placed within the medium category of the HDI scale.

According to Obi, while the other three countries have since moved into the high category by 2025, Nigeria has regressed into the low category.

“Within the same period of 35 years, from 1990 to 2025, the GDP Per Capita of these comparable nations have all improved. 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 higher GDP per capita than China, while Vietnam had less than one-fifth of Nigeria’s per capita. Today, Nigeria’s 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,” Obi stated.

He also added that Nigeria had the least number of people living in poverty among the four countries in 1990, but the reverse is now the case.

“In the area of poverty, Nigeria with about 50 million poor people, had the least number of people in poverty in 1990 than any of the three countries. While China had about 750 million people living in poverty, Indonesia and Vietnam had 85 million and 60 million poor people, respectively. China alone had about 15 times the number of poor people than Nigeria. Today, however, Nigeria has more poor people than these 3 countries combined,” Obi said.

Sowunmi, however, challenged Obi’s interpretation, describing his comparisons as imbalanced and failing to reflect the full picture of Nigeria’s economic structure.

In his rebuttal shared via social media, Sowunmi argued, “With due respect, @PeterObi, these measurements are faulty. They are extremely skewed because those who manipulate these figures have no metrics to measure the informal sector in Nigeria. You need to stop this, especially at international forums.”

He went further to advise Obi to direct his criticisms towards the real culprits of Africa’s economic challenges, saying, “You ought to place the burden on them and their Crazy neoliberal policy, and its deep state manipulations that put undue pressure on Africa! No one who wishes to lead a nation called Nigeria must be the de-marketer on steroids of the same country he or she wishes to lead. Stop it immediately.”

Sowunmi questioned the motives behind Obi’s public critiques of Nigeria’s economy before foreign audiences, asking, “Are those you wish to impress outside our country not aware of the multiplier effect of their destabilization of the Sahel and its unfortunate consequences on Nigeria? You need to cut the crap. #NigeriaFirst.”