The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, says the use of statistics and figures during his campaigns was to deviate from using old method which failed to work during elections.
Obi, however, said he and his team have been facing series of attacks for using statistics in his campaigns because it has elevated the conversation beyond critics’ reach, adding that it has exposed their (critics) vulnerability because “statistics will further simplify the extent of the atrocities of the old order on our dear nation.”
The LP presidential candidate said this in a statement issued by his campaign media office, Obi-Datti, on Sunday.
The statement titled, ‘Why Peter Obi’s statistics is unsettling the opposition’, read: “The dimensions the Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi brought into the nation’s electioneering this time has successfully thrown many pundits and politicians off balance because they were never prepared for it.
“Obi’s issue driven campaigns even though the correct and necessary thing to do in an ideal democratic setting has remained foreign and unfamiliar to Nigeria’s political environment, hence the apparent disgruntlement from his competitors and the opposition political parties.
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“The use of statistics and figures by Obi to buttress his points to Nigerians has helped to drive home his points, almost the same way the use of statistics and illustrations are handy in explanation of things.
“But notwithstanding all the potentials that abound in the use of statistics, the Labour Party flag bearer, Mr. Peter Obi has remained under attack for adequately using statistics to explain the challenges of the country and the way to go about it using inferences from other countries that passed similar road and have already scaled through.
“The Obi-Datti Media office tries to ask, why Nigeria is averse to any progressive ideas, especially in political circles despite not making any meaningful progress in the old ways.
“But truth remains that Peter Obi and his running mate, Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmad and their Obidient Movement cannot be aspiring to take back Nigeria from the grip of the old order using the same method that did not work.
“It’s therefore understandable seeing Obi and his team facing all kinds of attacks for using statistics in his campaigns because by it he has elevated the conversation beyond their reach.
“And has also exposed their vulnerability given the fact that statistics will further simplify the extent of the atrocities of the old order on our dear nation.
“At a recent Arise Television TownHall meeting for Presidential candidates, even the organisers mobilised themselves in the name of fact checking to ambush and embarrass Obi on his statistics but couldn’t, instead they apologised to him for their own misinformation.
“Obi-Datti media office wishes to therefore underscore the importance of the use of statistics by our principal in explaining out issues and bringing it closer to our people and to say that as inconveniencing and upsetting as it might sound to his competitors in the presidential race, there is no backing down.
“We very much understand the pricking the Obi statistics does to the old order in highlighting and bringing to the fore the rape they did to our dear nation, but there is no apology for following the global best practices to drive home points.
“Therefore, if you can’t beat them join them. If you have no statistics to offer apparently because you are mentally lazy or feel it would expose and contradict your past the more, the right thing to do is to join the winning train that has left the station,” the Obi-Datti media office stated.
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