Peter Obi, the Labor Party’s (LP) presidential candidate, has said that Nigeria cannot have so many people living in poverty and without crime and banditry.
Obi revealed this on Monday at the Publishers Forum, an initiative of the Nigerian Publishers Guild (NGE).
He said his administration plans to reduce Nigeria’s poverty rate by focusing on economic productivity.
Peter Obi stated that Nigeria was going through many challenges mainly because it was a consuming rather than a producing country, including unemployment, poverty, crime and insecurity.
- “We cannot have that number of people living in poverty and not have crime, banditry, etc. We must eliminate the sharing formula and replace it with the production formula.” he said.
- “My commitment is to put Nigeria in production. It is not acceptable that we cannot feed ourselves. We must make the country work; all it requires is leadership that understands and can drive the process. I can do that,” he said.
Campaign Financing: He also noted that no one has personally funded his campaign.
- “I cannot be talking about being transparent in the management of public money without starting my campaign. “I don’t pay people to work with me. Nobody will say that he is financing Peter Obi’s campaign. I am financing it myself.
- “All that stuff going on everywhere is just people believing in our cause and giving whatever of their little resources. I am encouraged and assure you that you are doing it for the right cause and I will never let you down.” he said.
Debt profile: On Nigeria’s debt profile, he said that all nations borrow, and individual companies borrow all over the world, citing what is important is what we use the borrowed money for. If you borrow for consumption, that’s where we have a problem.
- “I will not say that I will not borrow, but I will only borrow to invest and I will explain to Nigerians the need to borrow.” added.
For the record: The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that 63% of the people living in Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor.
This is according to a press release issued by the NBS on Thursday about highlights of the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Survey result.
According to the report, more than half of Nigeria’s population is multidimensionally poor, with higher multidimensional poverty in rural areas, where 72% of people are poor, compared to 42% of people in urban areas. .