Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, has strongly criticised the Federal Government’s approval of a ₦712.3 billion budget for the renovation of an airport, describing the move as a tragic misplacement of national priorities amidst a deepening hunger crisis affecting millions of Nigerians.
Obi made this known in a public statement where he referenced the United Nations’ July 2025 warning that 34 million Nigerians are at risk of hunger — a staggering figure also published in Nigerian dailies on August 1, 2025.
“This is not just an abstract statistic,” Obi said. “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.”
The former Anambra State governor expressed deep concern that on the very same day this report was made public, the Federal Government announced a ₦712 billion allocation for an airport renovation project — not for food security, not for health, and not to address pressing socio-economic needs.
“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,” Obi declared. “This raises a fundamental and urgent question: Where are our national priorities?”
He recalled that in 2013, Nigeria secured a $500 million loan from the China Exim Bank, with counterpart funding, to upgrade five major 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?” he questioned.
Obi emphasised that while infrastructure is important, it must never take precedence over the fundamental needs of the people. “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 be prioritised against hunger, health, education, and security,” he said.
He noted that food security itself is not just a humanitarian need, but a national security and economic strategy.
“Development is about choices,” Obi said. “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.”
Calling for an urgent rethink of Nigeria’s spending culture and national vision, Obi urged leaders to “put Nigerians first in every policy, every budget, and every decision.”
“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.”
