President Bola Tinubu has listed his two sons, Oluwaseyi Afolabi Tinubu, and Olayinka Hakeem Tinubu on the delegate list to the Conference of the Parties (COP28), that is ongoing in the United Arab Emirate (UAE).
Both of Tinubu’s sons were 15426 and 15427 on the spreadsheet and were designated as management staff at the State House.
Nigeria is a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) alongside 198 other countries. All of these parties have delegations at the conference.
Tinubu led Nigeria’s contingent to the summit. Although reports indicate that Nigeria sent no fewer than 1,411 delegates to the summit.
Members of the delegation include Adejoke Omolade Orelope-Adefulire, a senior special adviser to the president on SDGs; Kayode Adeolu Egbetokun, the inspector-general of police (IGP); ministers; directors and permanent secretaries of public agencies.
The emergence of the list has elicited a debate on social media. Many Nigerians have disagreed with the essence of such an over-bloated retinue of government functionaries.
Many believe that the expenses of these participants, including the president’s children, must have been borne by the current government, which has been asking poor Nigerians to make sacrifices in the face of scathing economic policies affecting family incomes.
UAE acts as the host government and presidency of the current edition, which is the 28th edition of the annual conference on climate sustainability progress.
According to Carbon Brief, a UK-based website covering the latest developments in climate science, 1,411 delegation figure puts Nigeria in a third position among the countries with the highest number of participants at the conference.
Seyi Tinubu has been in the limelight since the inauguration of his father as Nigeria’s president. In early November, the president specifically mentioned his name among those banned from attending the Federal Executive Council meeting, a weekly decision-making forum of the federal government.
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