Former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi has said the 1411 Nigeria’s contingents to the United Nations’ COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) was a wrong imitation of China.
Reports from Dubai showed that Nigeria equals China with 1411 contingents to the conference, the highest in the global event aside from the host UAE.
Obi who is the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, stated that instead of competing with China in the number of delegates in a specialised conference, such competition should be in the area of production.
Obi in a series of tweets on his verified X handle, described it as a twist of sad irony, noting that “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.”
The former LP stated that 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.”
He regretted that this huge contingent was at public expense, which he noted was at a time when most Nigerians could hardly afford food and basic needs as a result of economic hardship.
He wished a time when Nigeria could 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 emphasising, we must stop waste as an addition to our government and nation. We urgently need to cut the cost of governance and invest in production,” he said.
Obi warned of unnecessary ceremony and showmanship as a mode of government behaviour, stating that the Nigerian government should “tie spending to necessity and national priority, pointing out that a new Nigeria is possible but we only need to do the reasonable and the necessary.”
