“No item of urgent social welfare” – Peter Obi chides Tinubu over supplementary budget

Former Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi has berated some features of the recently signed 2.17 trillion naira budget.

Read also: Information Minister, Peter Obi go head on over supplementary budget

Peter via his official X account accused the government of being insensitive of the pains of the people in their budgetary allocations.

The supplementary budget had attracted a lot of controversy due some provisions like the “presidential yatch” also has a 0% health allocation.

The president in the presence of the senate President and other officials had signed the budget into law on Wednesday, 8 Nov 2023.

Obi however believes the president did not consider some pressing issues in the budget preparation process. 

In a thread of tweets via his official handle, Peter Obi had this to say:

No item of urgent social welfare has yet featured in the supplementary budget being orchestrated by this government. Instead, the items being made to dominate public discourse on the budget include a mysterious Presidential Yacht, Presidential Jets, the furnishing of already lavishly furnished presidential quarters and offices, fleets of luxury SUVs, etc. This portrays a Government that is totally uncaring and insensitive to the suffering of the majority, and indifferent to the mood of the nation,” the statement read.

“Admittedly, some items in the current budget may not have taken into consideration the needs of a new administration, but it is expected that a supplementary budget this late in the financial year should reflect mostly urgent items of national welfare.

Peter Obi also decried the complete omission of some pressing emergency needs of Nigerians in the budget, like allocations allocations to fight hunger amongst poor Nigerians.
his words:

“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.”