The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has accused President Bola Tinubu and other government officials across the country of depleting and mismanaging the scarce resources of Nigeria on needless foreign trips in 2024.
He said Tinubu and other elected and appointed officials of government only pay lip service to plans of cutting the cost of governance, arguing that they did not live by example last year.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State alleged this on Thursday during a media briefing in Abuja on the state of the nation.
Leaving Nigeria to other countries of the world has been a style that is known with government officials in the country.
As some claim to go for business opportunities and woo investors, others maintained sincerity by telling the public the true essence of visiting foreign lands. To some, it is to get better medical checkups while others who have already relocated their families abroad go there from time to time to check on their welfare.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari was notorious for incessant trips to foreign countries.
Buhari, almost immediately after his election, came under public censure over the frequency of his foreign trips.
His critics said that the benefits were not commensurate with the cost to the taxpayers even though the former leader claimed of visiting foreign nations to woo investors, attend meetings, ceal bilateral business dealings among others.
Reacting to incessant foreign trips embarked upon by President Bola Tinubu, Obi lamented the losses for Nigeria, calling on the President to be deliberate in cutting cost of governance.
He admonished Tinubu to make use of local hospitals and visit educational institutions in the country to ascertain the level of development in the nation’s educational and healthcare sectors.
Obi averred that the level of corruption in Nigeria remained high just as the cost of governance which he said has led to an astronomical increase in public debt under the current administration.
He maintained that government officials willfully mismanaged public funds in 2024 through incessant foreign trips, asking Tinubu and others to save public funds by making use of infrastructure in Nigeria, instead of wasting scarce funds in the name of traveling for business meetings and holidays.
