Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the last general election, has condemned the President Bola Tinubu’s approval of N39b for the renovation of the International Conference Centre ICC, Abuja, calling it a “misplacement of priorities by the government to favour the rich while the poor are dying in droves”.
Obi, who spoke in Abuja while announcing the facilitation of three projects, to the tune of N6 m plus some computers in Girls Secondary school, Chibok, Borno state, described anything done to promote education as ” not donation but an investment”
He berated the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) for spending N39 billion on the renovation of the International Conference Centre that was named after President Bola Tinubu in a place where people are dying of not having basic things like food, education and healthcare.
Obi described the renovation of the conference as a wasteful venture, urged the federal government to always invest in ventures like education that would be profitable to the youth in future.
The former Anambra State governor donated the sum of N6 million for the sinking of a borehole, provision of solar and a laboratory in the secondary school where school girls were kidnapped in 2014 by the Boko Haram terrorist group.
He described it as a waste and misplacement of government priority, whereas there are schools in the country where such funds should have been invested for the welfare and educational benefits of children.
According to Obi, ” the N39 billion used to renovate the international conference centre would have been better used to issues that would benefit the school children who are in dire need of such investment.
”M39 billion would have been used to procure thousands and thousands of computers that would have benefited the schools because the children who are leaders would have benefited from it. They are the leaders of tomorrow.
”This was one of the things I did when I was the governor of Anambra State, I made it to the extent that students use the computers, ten students to one computer,” he said.
Obi said that the donations would have been done in the Chibok community, but was warned that it is security risky to do so because of the security situation in the area.
“If a section of the country is not safe to visit, the whole country is not safe.”
The facilitator of the donations, and an activist for the free Chibok girls, Mrs Alisha Yusufu, said that the Chibok community got in touch with her soliciting help to improve computer literacy in the school on May 31 this year, and she immediately got in touch with Obi, who quickly obliged.
Recall that the Abuja International Conference Centre (ICC), built in 1991 under Ibrahim Babangida for just ₦240 million, was a full, solid national monument constructed from the ground up.
The edifice was in 2025 under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, renovated at ₦39 billion.
The President was to proceed to rename the edifice as “the Bola Ahmed Tinubu ICC”
Obi observe that this is about ” personal branding, self-glorification, and rewriting history in paint and concrete.
