Vice-President Kashim Shettima has criticised Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), accusing him of relying on questionable statistics and offering little beyond his opposition to the restoration of petrol subsidy.
Shettima made the remarks at the 32nd Nigerian Economic Summit, where he acknowledged Obi’s position against restoring the subsidy but questioned the strength of his economic proposals.
“I respect Peter Obi for having the courage to say he’s not going to restore the petrol subsidy, but beyond spouting some dubious statistics, Mr Peter Obi has absolutely nothing to offer,” the Vice-President said.
The criticism followed Shettima’s earlier objections to Obi’s comparisons between Nigeria and Bangladesh, arguing that economic policies must reflect the specific circumstances of the country in which they are implemented.
Using a clothing-size analogy, Shettima said Obi appeared convinced that “a size 36 shirt tailored for Bangladesh will somehow fit Nigeria’s size 52 frame.”
He argued that Nigeria’s population, institutions, political environment and economic structure required policies designed to address its peculiar challenges rather than prescriptions borrowed from other countries.
“A country of over 250 million people cannot be governed through borrowed statistics and economic prescriptions detached from its peculiarities,” Shettima added.
The Vice-President also disputed Obi’s claim that he won the 2023 presidential election, describing the assertion as unsupported by evidence.
Shettima characterised the claim as a “delusion of grandeur” and accused Obi of presenting old political ideas as a new direction for the country.