Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, has reacted to the report on the large delegation of Nigeria to the ongoing COP28 Climate Change Summit in United Arab Emirates (UAE), emphasising the need to stop waste as a culture by the government.
LEADERSHIP reports that 1,411 delegates, comprising President Bola Tinubu and his two children, about 26 ministers, their aides, other top government officials, and journalists, were attending the conference.
Even though a presidential media aide, Tope Ajayi, on Sunday, came out to deny that government was funding all the delegates, he, however, failed to explain why President Tinubu’s two sons – Seyi and Yinka Tinubu – were registered at the global event as Nigerian government officials.
However, Obi said it was a twist of irony for Nigeria to match China with the same number of delegates at the ongoing COP28 summit.
He wrote: “In a twist of sad irony, let me congratulate the giant of Africa, Nigeria, for matching the great China, with the same number of contingents at the ongoing COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Nigeria’s contingent to COP28 totaled 1411, the same number as the Chinese contingents. While China’s budget for 2024 is about $4 trillion, about $2,860 per head; Nigeria’s budget is about $33 billion, about $165 per head. China has a high Human Development Index, HDI, with a ranking of 79 out of 191 countries measured, and Nigeria has a low HDI, with a ranking of 163 out of 191 countries measured. Nigeria has more people living in ‘Multi-Dimensional’ poverty than China, despite China having seven times our population.
“Most importantly, the vast majority of those in the Nigerian delegation to COP28 are either non relevant civil servants or relations, friends and hangers-on of high government officials. Most of them hardly understand or have anything to do with Climate Change. This huge contingent is out at public expense at a time when most Nigerians can hardly afford food and basic needs as a result of economic hardship. I pray earnestly that a day will come soon enough when we can focus on competing with China on productivity and the miracle of migrating the highest number of its citizens out of poverty over a relatively short time. As we have kept emphasizing, we must stop waste as a tradition of our government and nation.
“We urgently need to cut the cost of governance and invest in production. We need to de-emphasize unnecessary ceremony and showmanship as a mode of government behaviour.We need to tie spending to necessity and national Priority. A New Nigeria is possible. We only need to do the reasonable and the necessary. -PO.”
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