N60bn spent on SUVs for legislators is more than national budget for primary healthcare in 2023—Obi
Joseph Irikefe
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the recent presidential election in Nigeria, Mr. Peter Obi has lambasted the President Bola Tinubu administration for spending the highly criticised N60 billion for the purchase of SUVs for the federal legislators.
He said that two third of that unnecessary luxury at this critical point in the nation’s economic history could have been deployed to salvage the collapsed primary healthcare sector of the country.
Peter Obi regretted that the Federal Government’s budget in 2023 for Primary Healthcare is less than the N60 billion expended on providing the luxury SUVs for the legislators.
Peter Obi in a recent post on his X Handle, formally Twitter, said: “The recent expenditure of N60 billion for the purchase of SUV vehicles for about 400 legislators is a continuation of the troubling trend in our nation today.
“We have continued to abandon the critical areas of development measurement while expending scarce resources on needless luxury and creating comforts for those elected to serve the people.
“Our primary healthcare, which is the foundation of health, a critical development index measure, has collapsed, leading to our surpassing India, a country 7 times our population. To allocate such huge amount, which is more than what we allocated to our primary healthcare, is nothing but troubling.
“One third of that amount, with proper negotiation, would have given us quality the locally manufactured SUV vehicles from Innoson Motors, PAN or any local auto assembly plant, to help boost our economy and create and retain jobs,” he said.
He further disclosed that “Upon my being sworn in as the then Governor of Anambra State, I observed that our State High Court Judges, State Government Permanent Secretaries and newly appointed State Commissioners had no vehicles, Anambra State Government had then ordered for two bulletproof SUV vehicles for my use, I cancelled the order and used the same money to negotiate a concessionary pricing with Peugeot Automobiles to supply us Sixty 406 vehicles which were enough for all the cabinet members including myself and my Deputy Governor. We used the vehicles for our first tenure and were able to commence the work of doing more in the areas of health, education and lifting people out of poverty.”
“Nobody would contemplate this kind of expenditure under my administration,” Peter Obi stated.