The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, has described Nigeria’s allocation of a paltry ₦5 billion for students loans, and ₦6 billion for car park of members of the National Assembly (NASS), as laughable.
Tweeting on his X handle on Wednesday, Obi lamented the inadequate attention that the Nigerian government is paying to human capital development, which, he said, is the root cause of most investment challenges.
He expressed shock that Tinubu could budget ₦5 billion for student loans with a larger ₦6 billion to build a car park for the legislators.
According to him, if Nigeria does not cut cost of governance and strictly prioritizes expenditure on areas of growth and development, the country will not achieve any tangible and lasting development.
“Today, in this country, the inadequate attention being paid to human capital development is at the root of most investment challenges. This malaise has become a recurring decimal in our political life due to poor governance and persistent leadership failure.
“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 ₦5 billion was budgeted for student loans, while a larger sum of “6 billion was budgeted to build a car park for Legislators, who recently used 12 times the amount of student loans to buy official cars.
“Now we are using an amount more than was budgeted for student loans to provide legislators with car parks. Nigeria remains a country without a national library,” the tweet reads.
