Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of misplacing national priorities by approving ₦712.3 billion for airport renovation while 34 million Nigerians face the threat of hunger.
Obi, who made the statement on Wednesday, was reacting to a recent warning by the United Nations that 34 million Nigerians are at risk of food insecurity.
The UN alert, issued in July 2025, was widely reported in national newspapers on August 1, 2025—the same day the government announced the budget approval.
“This is not just an abstract statistic. It speaks of real people – our parents, children, neighbours, and friends – who are going to bed hungry and waking up without hope of a meal,” he said.
Obi stated, “It is profoundly troubling that at a time when millions of Nigerians are facing the crushing burden of hunger, the Federal Government has chosen to approve a staggering ₦712.3 billion—not to feed its people, not to lift them out of hardship, and not to invest in their well-being, but to renovate an airport. This raises a fundamental and urgent question: Where are our national priorities?”
He pointed out that a similar airport upgrade had taken place just over a decade ago.
He said, “Let us not forget: in 2013, Nigeria secured a $500 million loan from the China Exim Bank, supplemented by counterpart funding, to upgrade five international airports – Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Enugu.
“If that massive investment was made barely a decade ago, what justifies an even larger sum today for just one airport – especially at a time when Nigerians are starving, internally displaced, and desperate?”
The former Anambra State governor said it is the duty of the government to prioritise the welfare of its citizens.
“As a nation, our primary obligation is to protect and provide for our people, to ensure they are fed, healthy, and secure. While physical infrastructure like airports and roads matter, they cannot prioritise against hunger, health, education and security. Food security itself is a national security and economic strategy,” Obi said.
He warned that the current pattern of governance was detrimental to national development.
“Development is about choices. It’s about understanding that national progress begins with the basics: human development, not with grandiose infrastructure projects. A government that builds grandiose infrastructure while its people starve is not building a nation – it is betraying one,” he said.
Obi called for a complete overhaul of budgetary priorities, saying, “The time has come to rethink our priorities and put Nigerians first in every policy, every budget, and every decision.”
He added, “We must prioritise and concentrate our resources in critical areas of development: security of lives and property, health, education and pulling our people out of poverty.”