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Former Anambra State Governor and presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, has renewed his call for governments to rehabilitate existing infrastructure before starting new projects, saying President Bola Tinubu’s recent warning to state governors vindicates a position he has long been criticised for holding.
Reacting to Tinubu’s caution to governors against building flyovers in low-traffic areas while ignoring more urgent needs, Obi said the President was “essentially saying what I have always maintained: government must prioritise projects that directly address the immediate needs of the people.”
Obi noted that he had faced backlash in the past for advocating this approach, saying he has “often been criticised and called all sorts of names” for insisting that unfinished projects be completed before new ones are started. He said he hopes his critics will now turn the same scrutiny on the President.
But Obi argued the admonition should not stop at the state level. He pointed to what he described as “unrealistic and white-elephant projects” being pursued by the Federal Government even as critical infrastructure across the country continues to decay.
He singled out federal highways connecting commercial and food-producing regions, many of which he said have become “death traps,” arguing that channelling funds into prestige projects while these roads fall apart is neither economically sound nor people-focused.
Obi said the same philosophy shaped his tenure as Anambra governor, where he prioritised completing projects started by his predecessors over launching new ones — a practice he said reflects the true meaning of government as a continuum.
“Development should never be measured by who starts a project, but by whether it is completed and serves the people,” he said, adding that responsible leadership means fixing what is broken and completing what has already begun before committing scarce resources elsewhere.
