The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi has criticized the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration for approval of N8,000 as palliative to about 12 million households over the period of six months to alleviate the hardships faced by Nigerians as a result of subsidy removal.

Obi who spoke on Saturday at a school graduation in Abuja, said almost every family in Nigeria is vulnerable and is feeling the pains of the fuel subsidy removal, including teachers who are poorly paid and a lot of them being owed for months in some states.

He stressed that N8000 to 12 million households was not enough to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal, insisting that almost every parent need the money due to the level of poverty in the nation.

While speaking on the importance of education in any nation, Obi described as alarming the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) report that more than 20 million school-age children in Nigeria are out of school, saying there was no way there could be meaningful development when such huge number of children have no access to education.

The former Governor of Anambra state also said poverty is largely responsible for the challenge of insecurity being witnessed in the country today, saying the more people are put out of poverty, the more criminality is reduced “and in his words, you can’t do that unless you invest in education.”