Abubakar Atiku the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, has weighed in on the controversy surround the large number of President Bola Tinubu’s delegation to COP28 Climate Change Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
In a statement made available to the media Monday by Atiku’s spokesperson, Paul Ibe, the former Vice President said Nigerians need clean air and have access to clean water, but rather than address those issues, President Tinubu had gone on a jamboree in Dubai.
“How will the head of a government turn a conference of climate change to a jamboree, all-comers and ‘owambe’ party of over 1,400 delegates? It is ridiculous and a confirmation that he is still in a slumber as far as governance is concerned,” Atiku stated.
“The economic dire straits that Nigeria is facing demand that its leaders cut their coats according to the cloth available. It makes no sense for us to continue to borrow money to throw a street party outside the country.
“The leader of the Nigerian delegation should be reminded: COP28UAE is about improving lives, about clean air and water, healthy food, for all people, for nature, for a safe and secure future, and not for a jamboree of over 1,400 Owambe delegates.”
Meanwhile the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Temitope Ajayi, said it was not true that Nigeria’s 1,411 delegates are in Dubai on government bill.
“In Nigeria, like so many other countries, interested parties comprising government officials from both the federal and sub-national governments, business leaders, environmentalists, climate activists and journalists are present in Dubai.
“Also participating are agencies of government such as the NNPC and its subsidiaries, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, NIMASA, NDDC.
“Many youth organisations from Nigeria especially from the Northern and Niger-Delta regions whose lives and livelihoods are most impacted by desert encroachment and hydrocarbon activities are also represented.
“The President of Ijaw Youth Council, Jonathan Lokpobiri, leads a pan-Ijaw delegation of more than 15 people who registered as parties from Nigeria. Among delegates from Nigeria are also over 20 journalists from various media houses,” Ajayi said.
Zambian miners still missing in mudslides after two days
Emergency services dispatched to help around thirty illegal miners, missing for two days in a mudslide in Zambia, have been unable to locate them, the government reported.
The Minister of the Interior announced on Friday that at least 30 miners were trapped in a torrent of mud, caused by torrential rains, in an open-cast copper mine located in the Chingola region, around 400 km north of the capital Lusaka.
On Sunday, Zambian Vice-President Mutale Nalumango, referring to a “catastrophe”, indicated in a statement that despite relief operations “day and night”, “the search and assistance team did not have to “Today located none of the trapped miners, whose fate remains unknown . ”
The vice president specified that the search was concentrated in three places at the artisanal mining site, where hundreds of illegal miners usually dig the earth to extract copper.
The police communicated the names of seven missing miners while recognizing that the list was not exhaustive. The mining site was invaded by a mudslide at 2 a.m. Friday, the vice president said, without giving further details.
Zambia is one of the largest copper producers in the world. In the Chingola region, there is one of the largest open-cast copper mines in the world and some of the hills formed from mine waste are around a hundred meters high.
