A lot of dust generated from Nigeria’s 1,400 delegation to the COP28 Climate Summit is yet to settle as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the spokesman of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign Yunusa Tanko has asked the presidency to explain who funded the country’s delegates.
Since the country’s delegates number emerged, critics and opposition parties have condemned it, describing it as insensitive considering the harsh economic realities in the country.
According to the PDP, the delegation is “over-bloated” and made up of “baggage of cronies, mistresses and other hangers-on associated with the Presidency”.
“Our Party challenges the Presidency to come clean by making public the names of the official delegation sponsored by the Federal Government to the Conference, the relevance of such individuals to the Conference, and the total cost of such sponsorship on the nation. Of course, Nigerians have the list and they know the genuine, officials of sub-national governments and other self-sponsored entities at the Conference,” the PDP said in a Sunday communique.
The PDP wondered why a country “whose citizens are dying daily from the inability to purchase necessities be willing to fritter its resources and scarce foreign exchange in such a manner?”
But the main opposition party claims the development is a testament that “this administration is not interested in the good of the generality of our citizens but for a select few positioned to fleece the nation’s resources”.
The Labour Party (LP) also corroborated the PDP’s point and is asking the Federal Government to make clarifications about the number of delegates sent from Nigeria to the COP28.
Nigerians deserve to know who bankrolled the country’s delegates to the COP28, the opposition party’s campaign spokesman Tanko maintained.
“What we are saying is that the delegate number sponsored by the government should have been made public for us to know,” he said on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s breakfast show, Sunrise Daily.
“If the government is saying that they did not sponsor all of the 1,411 delegates, let them give us the delegate number that the government sponsored.
Presidency Reacts:
The presidency said not all delegates are government-sponsored.
Despite the criticisms that have greeted the development, the presidency said only a fraction of the delegates were sponsored by the government.
The Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President Temitope Ajayi said several Nigerians who are attending the COP28 were bankrolled by different organisations.
“It is important to state here that delegates from all countries whether from government, private sector, media, and civil society groups attend COP summits and conferences as parties and the number of attendees is registered against their countries of origin,” he said in a Sunday statement.
“This does not mean that they are sponsored or funded by the government. It must be said also that the fact that people registered to attend a conference does not mean everyone who registered is physically present.”
