The candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi has donated a sum of N1 million to about 1,000 hospital staff members treating victims of a recent military bombing in Kaduna State, northwest Nigeria.
The former Anambra governor said the donation should be used to buy a bottle of Coke for each of the hospital workers.
The Nigerian Army had claimed responsibility for the bombing which happened on Sunday, December 3 where scores of civilians were killed.
The army said the bombing was targeted at insurgents in Tudun Biri, in the Igabi Local Government Area of the state but mistakenly killed the civilians.
Obi donated the money during his visit to the community on Tuesday and called on the Nigerian government to support the security operatives to prevent such a tragic incident from happening in future.
In a video uploaded by Channels TV, Obi said, “I have to make her personal little contribution of N3 million to support. Doctors told me they have about 1000 workers in this hospital because I’m very critical. You can’t talk about healthcare unless there is the staff and the staff are critical.
“So I will buy them at least a bottle of Coke each. I am going to give Prof N1 million to be able to buy the staff – 1000 of them as 1,000 of Cokes will be N1,000,000. So I’m going to make that contribution to him because it’s important.
“And of course, there’s other extraordinary things, so I’ll be making a donation of about N5 million.”
Mr Obi also criticised President Bola Tinubu’s administration for not prioritising the fight against insecurity.
He said if the Nigerian government could redirect funds intended for frivolous items such as the purchase of luxury automobiles to equip Nigerian security officers, the country’s biggest problems would be reduced to a manageable level.
He continued: “I think it was the Chief of Defence Staff who said that their regular allocations, budgetary allocations, are not released to them adequately and then one question: what is our priority? To release money for non-essential things like SUVs or renovations and everything, or to release money to secure ourselves.
“Because security, everybody knows, is very, very critical to our problem today. That will take our farmers back to the farm, which will tackle our main inflationary item – food. If you secure the country, that’s the only way we could attract foreign investors we are looking for all over the world; so, this is critical.
“So for me, we need to do more and make sure that we spend our resources in the critical areas where it will be even improving the health sector, like this hospital. Bringing them and treating them in the hospital is one thing. Do we have a sustainable foundation to see, especially the orphan children, all through? I have somebody who lost 34 family members.
“You know the trauma of that, especially these orphan children. We must all join hands. They are now our children and they are now our property. Everybody must join hands to see them through.”
Nigeria’s 109 senators earlier donated their December salaries to the victims of the military drone attack.
The salaries reportedly amount to N109 million.
Jibrin Barau, the Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau, made the announcement when the Senate leadership paid a condolence visit to the Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani at the Government House.
