Former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi has berated the Federal Government for approving a whooping sum of N712 billion for airport renovation amidst severe hunger in the country.
Mr Obi said it was 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 N712.3 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.
The 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, in a statement posted on his X handle on Wednesday, explained that “in July this year, the United Nations issued a frightening warning that 34 million Nigerians are at risk of hunger. This was also published in national dailies on August 1, 2025. This is not just an abstract statistic. 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.”
He noted that approving such an amount while the country faces acute hunger, “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, supplemented by counterpart funding, to upgrade five international airports – Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Enugu. Noting that if such 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?
“As a nation, our primary obligation is to protect and provide for our people, to ensure they are fed, healthy, and secure,” he said.
Obi said while physical infrastructure like airports and roads matter, they cannot prioritise against hunger, health, education and security. Saying that food security itself is a national security and economic strategy.
He also noted that “Development is about choices. 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.”
Obi said the time has come for the leaders to rethink their priorities and 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,” he added.
