Former Anambra State Governor and Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has criticised the Federal Government over reports that about $9 million was spent on foreign lobbyists in Washington, describing the move as another example of misplaced priorities at a time of deepening national hardship.
In a statement shared on his official X handle on Friday, Obi said the alleged expenditure highlights Nigeria’s long-standing tendency to prioritise wasteful spending and image management abroad over the wellbeing of its citizens at home.
According to him, the reported lobbying deal is a painful reminder of how public funds are often deployed to manage perceptions internationally while living conditions within the country continue to deteriorate.
“It is both tragic and deeply concerning that our leaders persist in prioritising waste, corruption, propaganda, and false narratives over meaningful development,” Obi said. “The reported $9 million spent on lobbyists in Washington is likely only a fraction of the public resources wasted in similar ways globally.”
He warned that Nigeria’s worsening development indicators are the direct outcome of poor leadership choices accumulated over decades.
Obi noted that Nigeria has remained trapped in the low category of the Human Development Index (HDI) for 35 years, from 1990 to 2025, while countries that were once peers have made remarkable progress.
“In 1990, Nigeria’s per capita income was about three times higher than that of China,” he said. “Yet China and Indonesia have moved from low to medium and now high human development categories. Their success was not due to fate, miracles, or natural resources, but to deliberate choices and consistent, competent leadership.”
Highlighting the health component of the HDI, Obi described Nigeria’s global standing as alarming.
“Nigeria now records the lowest life expectancy in the world and ranks among the top two countries globally in maternal mortality,” he said. “For Nigerian women, childbirth has become one of the most dangerous experiences. Rather than invest in life-saving systems, we spend millions attempting to mask our failures.”
He argued that the alleged $9 million spent on foreign lobbyists could have been channelled into critical healthcare infrastructure with immediate and measurable impact.
“That amount is enough to fund the entire 2024 capital budget of at least one major teaching hospital in each geopolitical zone,” Obi said. “Such an investment would significantly improve healthcare delivery, survival rates, and life expectancy, while genuinely enhancing Nigeria’s image.”
According to Obi, Nigeria’s core challenge is not a lack of funds but a failure of prioritisation, discipline, and effective leadership.
“Every naira of taxpayers’ money should work for the Nigerian people,” he declared. “Instead, citizens die in under-equipped hospitals while government pays foreigners to pretend that everything is fine. We cannot continue to live in an illusion while our reality worsens. This constant elevation of trivialities over human lives must stop.”
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