The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, has decried the neglect of human capital in the 2024 budget recently signed into law by President Bola Tinubu.
Obi said the budget has N6 billion to construct a car park for lawmakers, a billion naira higher than the N5 billion loan budgeted for Nigerian students in tertiary institutions.
The LP standard bearer noted that the legislators recently used 12 times the number of student loans to buy cars, adding that the budget failed to prioritise the critical areas of investment for the people.
Obi said these in a series of posts on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Monday, January 8, 2024.
He said: “Today, in this country, the inadequate attention being given to human capital development is at the root of most investment challenges in our clime.
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“This malaise has become a recurring decimal in our political life due to poor governance and persistent leadership failure in the country.
“This has become a critical thing that is affecting the overall development, especially its HDI rating. Nigeria currently ranks 163 out of 191 countries measured and remained within the low category when our contemporaries have all moved on to medium and high categories.
“It is therefore shocking that our budget was signed and released to the world without prioritizing the critical areas of investment for the people.
“A sum of N5 billion was budgeted for student loans, while a larger sum of N6 billion was budgeted to build a car park for the legislators, who recently used 12 times the amount of student loans to buy their cars. Now we are using an amount more than was budgeted for student loans, to provide them with car parks.
“Nigeria remains a country without a national library. The library was awarded by Late General Abacha in 1995, and despite the billions already spent on it, it remains uncompleted today, and Nigeria’s library is operating from a rented apartment. Yet, the National Assembly budgeted N3 billion for its library.
“I consistently maintain that unless we cut the cost of governance and strictly prioritize our expenditure on areas of growth and development, we will not achieve any tangible and lasting development.“
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