Presidential candidate criticizes Buhari over poor World Bank rating

ayodele johnson

October 11, 2018 8:02 PM

Oby Ezekwesili thinks Nigeria has no business appearing at the deep end of a World Bank's HDI report. It is all down to poor leadership and disregard for welfare.

Oby Ezekwesili has criticized the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari over Nigerias poor rating in the World Banks Human Development Index (HDI).

In the HDI report, Nigeria is placed in the 152nd position among 157 nations reviewed.

“Nigeria unfortunately ranks 152nd out of 157 countries in Human Development index,” Dr. Jim Yong Kim, the President of the World Bank Group, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, says at the Annual Meetings going on in Bali, Indonesia.

Ezekwesili who is running for the presidential post under the platform Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) blames the heartbreaking ranking on the absence of good leadership.

ALSO READ: Oby Ezekwesili describes Presidency’s comment as a shame

She notes this Pulse in a statement issued through her office.

“This is a failure of leadership on the part of this government led by President Muhammadu Buhari. And this failure is, as I keep saying, urgently unsustainable.

"Nigeria has no business being in the lower rungs of the Human Capital Development index, the report is simply the result of a leadership that does not value its citizens enough to empower them holistically.

“With my experience advising some of the most reform-minded governments on our continent, and building economies across Africa, it becomes even more heartbreaking to see the basic steps we must take to revamp our economy, to revamp human capital investment and to move forward on these crucial indicators. This failure has to end.”

Oby Ezekwesili is shooting to kill

The ACPN presidential candidate Ezekwesili is not even joking in her bid to become president. As opposed to what some may have thought, she is not running for the position for the sake of it -- she really hopes to win.

"You think I'm doing this for jokes? I'm sorry, I'm running to win.

"There are two classes of people running in this election: the political class (the old order) and the Nigerian citizens. I'm the candidate for the Nigerian citizens. These two so-called dominant parties are really the party of the political class.

"What I'm doing is to get into this landscape to disrupt the old politics. We're tired of the old politics.

"I'm not running for president to make a statement, I'm ruuning to win so that we can build a different Nigeria," she tells Pulse during an interview on Thursday, October 11, 2018.

She hopes to gather enough willpower to lead a movement for change.

ayodele johnson