Jumoke Olasunkanmi
The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has flayed President Bola Tinubu for failing to prioritise the needs of impoverished Nigerians as evidenced in the controversial N2.1tr supplementary budget he signed into law on Wednesday.
He noted in a series of tweets posted on X, that no provision was made to address a critical issue such as the impending food crisis flagged in a report released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which stated that at least 2.6 million Nigerians may face a food crisis by 2024.
The report according to FAO’s country representative, Dominique Kouacou, disclosed that residents of Borno, Zamfara, Sokoto and even Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are most vulnerable to this prediction due to natural resource-based conflicts, high cost of food and agricultural inputs due to high inflation, and severe dry spells after the onset of rains.
This is amidst Nigerians’ present struggle to afford food as a result of inflation which stands at 26 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
The N2.176 trillion supplementary budget appropriated 35 percent to supplement federal workers wages and another 30 percent to defence and security.
The budget also featured some expenditures such as purchase of fleet of cars for the ‘office of the first lady’ which many Nigerians have criticised as frivolous and insensitive in the face of the many economic catastrophies in the country.
“Sadly, the most pressing national needs and emergencies have not featured in the supplementary budget that was just announced by the government. For example, the United Nations and World Food Programme have recently alerted that up to 6.5 million Nigerians will go hungry next year.
“This number is largely from among citizens in Sokoto, Adamawa, Borno, Yobe, and Zamfara States. A caring Government in order to plan for the mitigation of such pending catastrophe can request for supplementary budget provisions to cushion those under threat,” Obi said.
He added: “The government’s overall attitude does not indicate that it is aware that the country is in a huge crisis, nor is the government in tune with the plight of the generality of our people. Even worse is the fact that most of the funding for these profligate expenditures will be largely borrowed. The least that Nigerians expect from the government at this difficult moment is empathy and realism, not lavish indulgence.”
