The Niger State Governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, has backed the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 polls, Peter Obi’s stance that it was shameful for Nigeria to receive food donations from war-torn Ukraine.
Governor Bago, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said this at the Leadership Award ceremony held at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, where he and Obi were awardees.
The governor, speaking in a video seen by SaharaReporters, said, “My boss, you are very right on what you’ve said. We have no reason to be poor. People may not like you, but they must hear you. What you say is the gospel truth.”
Backing Obi’s stance, Governor Bago said that “It is time we tell ourselves the basic truth. We need to feed ourselves. It is a shame for people like Ukraine in war to be giving us food.”
The governor added that “Nigeria needs to be productive. You cannot be out of poverty unless you start to produce. I’m not an advocate of handouts and palliative. I don’t believe in it.”
SaharaReporters had reported that Obi lambasted the Nigerian government over the donation of 25,000 metric tonnes of wheat by war-torn Ukraine.
Report on Friday says 25,000 metric tonnes of wheat were provided by the war-torn Ukrainian Government to support the World Food Programme (WFP) in providing emergency food assistance to 1.3 million crisis-affected people in North-East Nigeria.
It was learnt that the donation was part of the humanitarian “Grain from Ukraine” initiative launched by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Obi said that such a gesture from a country that rather needs humanitarian assistance as a result of the effect of the ongoing war with Russia, is disheartening and a national disgrace to Nigeria which is officially at peace.
While applauding Ukraine for the kind gesture, Obi said that a war-torn country donating food to Nigeria underscores vigorously the importance of sound political leadership as the first concrete requirement for any nation desiring to develop and enhance the standard of living of its citizenry, stressing that the national disgrace stems from years of leadership failure in Nigeria.
Reacting to Obi’s criticism, Nigerian government said that the fact that Nigeria accepted grains from Ukraine did not make the country a weak or failed state.
