Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, Mr. Peter Obi has reacted to the long list of 1411 delegates that travelled with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the ongoing 2023 UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirate.
Obi noted that the Nigeria’s huge contingent was out at public expense at a time when most Nigerians can hardly afford food and basic needs as a result of economic hardship.
He said that Nigeria must stop waste as a tradition of our government and nation, stressing that we urgently need to cut the cost of governance and invest in production.
In a cajoling post on his official X account, Mr Peter Obi congratulated President Tinubu-led Nigeria government for competing favourably with China on the number of delegates at Conference, stressing that it was worrisome that Nigeria that should be competing with China in productivity choose instead to compete in spending on frivolities.
In his words; “A New Nigeria is possible. We only need to do the reasonable and the necessary.
“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 totalled 1411, is 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.
“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.
“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,” he stressed.
