Nigerian delegates at COP28 over 1,411
No fewer than 1,411 Nigerian delegates, enough to fill two or three jumbo jets, registered to participate at the 28th Climate Change Summit presently holding in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. That is, the meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
And according to data published by UNFCCC, about 97,000 delegates registered to attend in person, with another 3,000 registering to participate virtually, making it the largest COP conference in history and almost twice the number that travelled to Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt for COP27 last year, the previous largest in an almost 30-year history of summits.
16,000 of the participants in the COP28 conference are however support staff.
The delegates are categorised into three groups; those representing countries, who make up the bulk of participants, those representing Non-Governmental Organizations and those representing the media.
Carbon Brief, a UK-based website that reports the latest developments in climate science, climate policy and energy policy published an analysis of the list of participants that showed Nigeria with the third highest number of registered delegates. Along with Nigeria, China also registered 1411 delegates.
Only the host country, the United Arab Emirates with 4,409 delegates and Brazil with 3,081 delegates had more registered participants. Carbon Brief however reported that the final list of participants will not be published by UNFCCC until after the conference as not all registered participants actually make it to the conference.
An example of that is Nigeria’s minister of information, Mohammed Idris Malagi who registered for the conference but ended up not attending.
Nigeria’s large delegation is coming at a time of economic difficulties, which have left Nigerians groaning under the weight of inflation, higher fuel prices, rising food and drug prices and stagnant wages.
Yet, the cost of governance, right from running the presidency to paying a large bureaucratic workforce, has continued to eat away at Nigeria’s finances.
It is however not clear how many of the 1,411 participants who make up Nigeria’s delegation are part of the government’s representation, how many represent NGOs and how many are media representatives.
It also could not be determined whether the entire 1,411 delegates were sponsored by the Nigerian government or were part of a private sector team.
Apart from the cost of flying and parking the presidential jet in the United Arab Emirates for the duration of the conference, hundreds of millions of Naira would be needed for flight tickets for the majority who could not squeeze themselves into the presidential jet.
Millions of Naira more would also be needed for accommodation and feeding in Dubai, known to be one of the most expensive cities in the world to visit and live in.
At present, there is no direct flight from Nigeria to Dubai as Emirate Airline stopped operation into Nigeria due to some irreconcilable difference between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
However, an average ticket on Turkish and Ethiopian airlines is about $2,400 for a return ticket from Abuja to Dubai.
With a prevailing rate of N1,160 at the parallel market, a return ticket would be about N2.78million.
However, with a delegation of 1,411 to the COP28 World for the world climate action summit, the country would have spent a large sum on air tickets.
Nigeria’s large delegation only came to light due to the publication of the list of registered participants by UNFCCC.
Since coming into office in May 2023, President Bola Tinubu has also made several international trips to attend summits without the presidency releasing to full list of those that make up his official delegation.
President Tinubu made his first official trip to France on June 20, to attend the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.
On July 8, the president was in Guinea Bissau and again on November 16 to celebrate the country’s 50th anniversary. He visited Kenya on July 15 for the AU Summit and on August 1, the president wasin Benin Republic.
He went to India on September 5 fort the G20 Summit in New Delhi. And a few days later, he arrived New York, the United States of America for the UN General Assembly meeting.
The president was in Saudi Arabia on November 8, Germany on November 19 and is presently on a visit to the UAE.
