The number of Nigeria’s delegation to the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), was criticised on Sunday by Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) candidate for president in 2023.
According to Obi, the majority of the Nigerian delegation to COP28 is made up of either irrelevant civil servants or the relatives of high-ranking government officials. Obi bemoaned the “huge contingent” travelling to Dubai at taxpayer money at a time when the majority of Nigerians can hardly afford food and basic necessities.
The former Anambra State governor called the Tinubu administration’s decision to send more than 1,000 people to the summit a waste of limited resources in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“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.”
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“Nigeria has more people living in ‘Multi-Dimensional’ poverty than China, despite China having seven times our population.”
“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.
“As we have kept emphasizing, we must stop waste as a a tradition of our government and nation. We urgently need to cut the cost of governance and invest in production.
President Bola Tinubu left Abuja for Dubai on November 29, 2023, in preparation for the summit, which was scheduled to end on December 12, 2023. However, there has since been controversy surrounding the number of Nigerian delegates attending the summit, which was higher than China. Many Nigerians have taken to social media to criticise the government for being “insensitive” to their financial hardships, which were brought on by the removal of the petrol subsidy in mid-2023.
