Peter Obi Lampoons FG's Plan To Spend N712 billion On Lagos International Airport

...Says govt earlier borrowed $500 million from China to repair five airports including same Lagos

 ... As 34 million Nigerians face starvation 

Former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2023 elections, Peter Gregory Obi, has condemned Federal Government's plan to spend ₦712 billion on the renovation of the Lagos International Airport, at a time the United Nations warned that 34 million Nigerians are at risk of hunger.

He also said that N712 billion excluded the $500 million earlier borrowed from China for the renovation of five other airports including same Lagos International Airport.

Obi lamented that the Federal Government would by the senseless expenditure, prove the 2024 Nobel Laureate in Economics, James A. Robinson, who stated that "Nations Like Nigeria, Know What To Do To Prosper, But Just Can’t Do It," right by spending such humongous amount of money to renovate a single airport, when Nigerians including parents, children, neighbours and friends were facing imminent starvation to death.

He was reacting to reports by the Federal Government that it would expend such huge resources on the renovation of the airport. 

His words, "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.

"So, while the country faces acute hunger — with Nigeria ranked among the hungriest countries in the world and classified under the category of 'serious hunger,' the Federal Government of Nigeria announced a ₦712 billion budget for the renovation of an airport on the same August 1, 2025.

"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. This raises a fundamental and urgent question: Where are our national priorities?

"Let us not forget:, 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. 

"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?

"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 prioritise against hunger, health, education and security. Food security itself is a national security and economic strategy.

"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.

"The time has come to rethink our 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. A New Nigeria is POssible."