The African Democratic Congress has described the reported approval of a $9 million contract by the federal government for lobbying services in the United States over Nigeria’s security situation as scandalous.
The opposition party said the move represents an indefensible attempt by the administration to launder its image abroad while Nigerians continue to face worsening insecurity and deepening economic hardship.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party said the expenditure reflects grossly misplaced priorities at a time when thousands of citizens have been killed and millions are struggling to afford basic necessities.
The party argued that no amount of paid lobbying can conceal what it described as the government’s failure to protect lives and property across the country.
Reports had emerged that the federal government hired a lobbying firm in the United States to assist in communicating its actions on protecting Christians in Nigeria to the US government, with the contract said to be worth $9 million.
Reacting to the development, Abdullahi said no government in Africa had ever committed what he described as such an obscene sum to a short-term public relations exercise.
“While the ADC recognises 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 healthcare is a clear case of misplaced priorities and moral blindness.
“This decision is also an admission of diplomatic failure. A government that has left key ambassadorial positions vacant now seeks to outsource diplomacy to lobbyists, 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 at home. No amount of image laundering can wash away the blood of thousands of Nigerians killed under this administration’s watch,” Abdullahi said.
He added that lobbying aimed at impressing foreign leaders could not replace a coherent and effective strategy to end the ongoing violence in the country.
According to him, a President who declares a state of emergency on security and then proceeds on foreign holidays cannot be salvaged by public relations firms.
“Equally dangerous is the framing of this lobbying effort as a campaign to ‘communicate Christian protection efforts.’
“This risks deepening sectarian tensions and politicising security in a country already strained by religious and ethnic fault lines. Security failures affect all Nigerians, regardless of faith, and cannot be addressed through selective messaging abroad instead of justice, accountability, and effective governance at home,” he said.
Abdullahi stressed that Nigeria does not need propaganda but leadership, adding that public resources should be directed toward protecting lives, restoring trust in state institutions and rebuilding a country in distress, rather than polishing the image of a government he said has failed in its most basic responsibility of safeguarding lives and property.
