The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 election, Peter Obi, on Wednesday, faulted the 2023 Supplementary Budget, noting that it failed to cover the present sufferings Nigerians are going through, News About Nigeria reports.
Obi said this in a post shared on his official X account titled, ‘Observations on the Supplementary Budget,’ in response to the signing of the 2023 supplementary appropriation bill of N2.17 trillion into law by President Bola Tinubu.
According to Obi, a supplementary budget is meant to be a budget made for very important national welfare needs of the people which were not captured originally in the main budget or do not have adequate funding.
However, in the case of the current supplementary budget signed by Tinubu, the most pressing national needs and emergencies in Nigeria were not included in the budget.
The former governor of Anambra State also noted that no item of urgent social welfare was included in the budget.
He said, instead, the budget was dominated by items to sponsor the luxurious lifestyle of the current administration.
He listed the items which, according to him, are not necessary to be “the purchase of a Presidential Yacht, Presidential Jets, the furnishing of already lavishly furnished presidential quarters and offices, fleets of luxury SUVs etc.”
Obi further alleged that this shows that Tinubu’s administration is uncaring and insensitive to the sufferings of the majority of Nigerians.
The Labour Party flagbearer in the last election, who also lamented the fact that most of the funding for these reckless and wasteful spendings is borrowed, noted that, the least that Nigerians expect from the government at this difficult time is empathy and realism, not lavish indulgence.
