The latest data on the cost and value of residency of the United States vice president at $7.5 million, while the cost and value of residency of Nigeria’s vice president are times two of the US’ showed insensitivity to the suffering masses of Nigerians.
Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, said the Tinubu-led federal government has shown misplacement of priority of a country that slid to the fourth-largest economy from first in Africa.
Obi regretted that while the US has a Gross Domestic Product of $25 trillion and a per capita income of $80,000, the largest economy of the world still housed her current vice president, Kamela Harris, in a 100-year-old VP residency, valued at $7.5 million and last renovated in 2021.
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But Nigeria, a poor country that has her citizens with worse statistics of poverty and hunger, reduced from first economy of the continent to fourth in the continent, and with a Gross Domestic Product of $252 billion and a per capita income of $1,080, built a residency for her vice president, Kashim Shettima, at $15 million which is times two that of the United States.
“To elucidate further, despite dropping down to the fourth-largest economy in Africa, with a GDP of $252 billion and a per capita income of $1,080, with huge debt burdens and borrowing to service debts, yet, we are spending $15 million for our Vice President’s residence, while the USA, the world’s largest economy with a GDP of $25 trillion, about 100 times our GDP, and a per capita income of $80,000, about 80 times ours, still houses their Vice President in Number 1 Observatory Circle, a house built over 100 years ago, and whose value is obviously less than the $15 million we are spending on our VP’s residence. A reputable real estate company, actually, reports that the US Vice President’s Official Residence is valued at about $7.5 million today,” the former governor of Anambra State noted.
Obi described the preference of Tinubu’s administration for luxury over addressing the economic hardship of Nigerians, poverty, insecurity, homelessness and hopelessness as insensitive of the presidency to the plights of the citizens.
He advised the government to focus on addressing the hunger its economic policies imposed on Nigerians. He said the time had come for the leadership of the country to focus on what can create wealth and address poverty of Nigerians.