Barely 24 hours after urging Peter Obi to rejoin the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Segun Sowunmi, the former governorship aspirant in Ogun State has advised the 2023 Labour Party Presidential candidate to think Nigeria first and stop demarketing the country.
TheNewsGuru recalls that the former presidential candidate during his speech in America, said that in 1990, when the Human Development Index (HDI) measurement started, Nigeria, China, Vietnam and Indonesia were all classified under the medium category of the HDI measurement.
According to Obi, between 1990 and 2025, the three other countries moved up to the high category of HDI, while Nigeria fell into the low category.
Obi said that in the area of poverty, Nigeria had the fewest people in poverty in 1990, and 35 years later, it has more poor people than China, Indonesia and Vietnam.
However, Sowunmi faulted Obi’s analysis, saying his submissions about Nigeria were extremely skewed.
He emphasised that “those who manipulate these figures have no metrics to measure the informal sector in Nigeria.”
He, therefore, advised Obi to immediately stop portraying Nigeria in a bad light at international forums, adding that “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.”
Showunmi received several backlash from supporters of the former presidential candidate.
In response to the backlash, Showunmi noted that when President Donald Trump was running to be the 47th president of the US, he did not demarket the country.
“Did Donald Trump come to any other country or Africa to demarket the United States?” Showunmi asked.
He said the former Governor of Anambra State ought to know that some of the samples used to arrive at data concerning Africa were faulty.
He added that it was wrong for Obi to always emphasise Nigeria’s misery without proffering a solution.
“The world is in flux right now and nations are renegotiating terms from trade to tariff to WTO to enter requirements. Do you think one of our most visible citizens, Peter Obi, should be so myopic as to not look at the errors in sampling?
“Those who pick estimations to keep us down and discourage, especially when the biggest cause of our insecurity is the failure and destabilization of Libya, Syria, Iraq, etc. Joined with an excessive know-it-all of IMF, you need to tell him to stop it.
“Shall Peter Obi’s play only be misery? Ask him for a practical solution he gets confused. Our salvation is not outside our country. If he loves Indonesia so much, he can relocate there. Those who love Nigeria will be inspired to fix it,” he stated.