ALLEGED BOKO HARAM INFLUENCER SHETTIMA IS NOT IN OBI’S LEAGUE AND HAS NO MORAL OR FACTUAL STANDING TO ATTACK HIM
Great Imo Jonathan
Vice President Kashim Shettima, prodded by his incompetent boss, President Tinubu, who is afraid to face Obi in a live debate, has been going around attacking Peter Obi for using statistics and for comparing Nigeria with other countries. This is coming from a man whose entire tenure as Governor of Borno State from 2011 to 2019 is a textbook case of failure by every internationally accepted measurement of leadership.
Leadership is not measured by how loud you speak or how many insults you throw. The world measures leadership by the Human Development Index, which combines education, health and income, by the Multidimensional Poverty Index, by debt sustainability, and by real outcomes in the lives of citizens.
By those standards, Peter Obi remains one of the most successful governors Nigeria has ever produced, while Kashim Shettima ranks among the worst.
Consider what each man met and what he left. When Peter Obi took over Anambra in 2006, Anambra was broken. It was the kidnapping capital of Nigeria, it was number 26 in WAEC performance, its hospitals had no accreditation, its civil servants were owed, and contractors were owed. When he left in 2014, Anambra was number one in WAEC and NECO for three straight years in 2011, 2012 and 2013. He had returned schools to the missions with billions of naira in grants, bought thirty thousand computers for schools, bought over one hundred school buses, and revitalized education. In health, he built the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital in Awka from the ground up, accredited twelve health institutions including the famous Iyienu Mission Hospital, and brought Anambra’s infant mortality to the lowest in the South East. In finance, he did what no governor in Nigeria’s history has done: he left zero debt and left savings of seventy-five billion naira, which at that time was one hundred and fifty-six million dollars, split as fifty-six million dollars in Fidelity, Diamond and Access Banks, fifty million dollars in bonds, and thirty billion naira set aside for the future. The Debt Management Office rated Anambra as the least indebted state. He attracted a hundred million dollar brewery from SABMiller, supported Innoson Motors, and secured Anambra without displacing a single community.
Now look at Kashim Shettima’s Borno. When he took over in 2011, Borno was peaceful, functional, and had a working school system. When he left in 2019, Borno had become the epicenter of a humanitarian catastrophe. Over twenty of the twenty-seven local governments were captured by Boko Haram at different points. One thousand five hundred schools were destroyed. Over eight hundred thousand children were out of school. Borno was consistently in the bottom three in WAEC performance. It was under his watch in 2014 that the Chibok Girls were abducted, despite warnings, and that abduction remains a permanent stain on his administration. The health system collapsed, with only thirty-five percent of health facilities functional by 2016, leaving the state dependent on UNICEF and the World Health Organization for routine immunization. Poverty rose to seventy-two percent. Over two million people became internally displaced persons. The Human Development Index of Borno collapsed to one of the lowest in Nigeria and indeed in West Africa. Financially, while Obi was saving, Shettima was borrowing. He left Borno with over one hundred billion naira in domestic debt, with no savings, and with an economy ninety percent dependent on federal allocation. No major private investment came to Borno in his eight years.
So when Shettima attacks Peter Obi for using data, Nigerians should laugh. The attack itself shows ignorance.
Shettima says we should not compare Nigeria with other countries. That statement alone proves he does not understand economics or development. Every serious measurement of development is comparative by design. Gross Domestic Product is ranked by the World Bank comparing Nigeria with Egypt, South Africa, Ghana and Kenya. GDP per capita compares income per person across nations. Purchasing Power Parity, by its very definition, compares what one dollar can buy in Lagos versus Nairobi versus London Nigeria versus Bangladesh. Inflation, unemployment, poverty rate, all are measured against global benchmarks set by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme. The Human Development Index itself is a comparative index that ranks Norway against Nigeria. Even in medicine, a doctor measures your blood pressure against a normal standard. How will you know you are sick if you refuse to compare? Peter Obi compares Nigeria to Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Indonesia because those countries were poorer than Nigeria in 2000 and have now overtaken us. That is not demarketing. That is how serious nations plan.
Finally, if Obi was truly spouting wrong statistics, the honest thing for Shettima to do is to provide the correct figures. He has never done so. Obi quotes the National Bureau of Statistics that unemployment was thirty-three percent. He quotes the UNDP that one hundred and thirty-three million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor. He quotes the World Bank that Nigeria’s GDP per capita has fallen to around one thousand five hundred and ninety dollars. If those figures are wrong, Shettima should provide the correct figures from NBS, World Bank, or IMF. He cannot, because they are correct.
One man met a kidnapping-infested Anambra and left it as number one in education, with savings and no debt. The other met a functional Borno and left it as the global headquarters of Boko Haram, with Chibok Girls missing, two million IDPs, collapsed schools, and massive debt. One built. One lost a state.
By every standard that the world uses to measure good governance, Shettima does not come close to Peter Obi, and he has no moral or factual standing to lecture Obi on data. You cannot attack data when you have no data of success to show.
Shettima should be careful because if we pay attention to him he will hide in shame.
Great Imo Jonathan
