The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has described the payment of $9 million to a United States lobbying team as “reprehensible and inexcusable”.
The opposition party said the contract for US lobbying services was part of an effort to tarnish its image abroad while Nigerians grapple with worsening insecurity and economic hardship.
The party's National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, said the expenditure reflected misplaced priorities.
The payment comes at a time when thousands of civilians have been killed and millions are barely able to meet basic needs.
The party argued that “no amount of paid lobbying can conceal the government's failure to protect life and property”.
The ADC, therefore, condemned the Tinubu administration for deploying scarce public resources to burnish its poor image abroad rather than addressing the deepening security and economic crisis at home, as evidenced by recent revelations over a $9 million lobbying contract for the federal government in the United States of America.
According to the ADC, “No government in Africa has given such an obscene amount of money to a short-term public relations exercise”.
The ADC said that although it recognizes the importance of representing Nigeria's interests internationally, “spending $9 million on image management at a time when millions of Nigerians cannot afford food, fuel or basic health care is a clear case of misplaced priorities and moral blindness”.
The party described the decision as “an admission of diplomatic failure”.
This is coming at a time when Nigeria's missions abroad are without their important heads like ambassadors and high commissioners
The ADC said that “a government that has left key ambassadorial positions vacant now seeks to outsource diplomacy to lobbyists, thereby further weakening Nigeria's institutional credibility and reducing foreign policy to transactional propaganda.”
“More troubling is the illusion that paid lobbying in Washington can erase the reality of mass killings, widespread insecurity and state failure domestically.
“No amount of image laundering can wash away the blood of thousands of Nigerians killed on the watch of this administration. Lobbying to influence foreign leaders cannot be a substitute for a coherent strategy to end the bloodshed.
“A President who declares a state of emergency on security and then goes on foreign holidays cannot be saved by public relations firms.
It is equally dangerous to frame this lobbying effort as a campaign to “communicate Christian security efforts.”
“This risks deepening sectarian tensions and politicizing security in a country already strained along religious and ethnic fault lines. Security failures affect all Nigerians, regardless of religion, and cannot be addressed through selective messaging abroad rather than through justice, accountability and effective governance at home.” The statement said
The ADC therefore emphasizes that “Nigeria does not need publicity. Nigeria needs leadership. Resources should be spent on protecting lives, restoring confidence in state institutions and rebuilding the country in crisis, not on polishing the image of a government that has failed in its most basic responsibility: the protection of life and property.”
